
Class Vl\ 

Book Kl 



L Handbook 
)F THE Principal 
ciENTiFic Institutions 
osTON AND Vicinity 

898 Oft ^ -^ 



tpared for the Fiftieth 
liversary Meeting of t he 
erican Association for the 
^ancennent of Sc i e nee 
the Local Comnnittee 



A HANDBOOK 

OF THE 

Principal Scientific Institutions 

OF 'tS S (^ 

BOSTON AND VICINITY. 



WITH A BHIEF ACCOUNT OF THE MORE IMPORTANT 

PUBLIC WORKS, OF THE GEOLOGY AND 

GEOGRAPHY, AND OF PLACES OF 

HISTORICAL INTEREST. 



Prepared for the 

Fiftieth Anniversary Meeting of the 

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 

by the Local Committee. 



BOSTON : 

Rockwell and Churchill Press 

1898. 





COPYK 


IIGIIT, 1S9S 
BY 


HARRY 


W. TYLER 




Local 


Secretary 




In excii. 


!) 




"b. Uh, 




JJ^ 


1 I'i^OH 



F73 

.5" 
./1 5" 



PEEFAOE. 



The object of this pamphlet is to present to members 
of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science and others a brief but comprehensive account 
of those institutions and public works which have par- 
ticular interest for scientific visitors to Boston. Such 
an account finds no adequate place in the ordinary guide- 
book, and it is believed that in the present form it will 
serve a useful purpose. The Handbook is not intended 
to take the place of the various guide-books mentioned 
in the " Preliminary Announcement " of the committee, 
but rather to bring together such information as is not 
otherwise available in any one place. 

In the selection of material and the assignment of 
space it has been the aim of the editorial committee to 
confine the Handbook for the most part to matters of 
distinctively scientific interest, and in the second place 
to allot relatively more space to those institutions with 
which the meetings of the American Association bring 
its members most in contact. The proportions of the 
different sections should not, therefore, be regarded as 
corresponding to the general scope or importance of the 
institutions under consideration. It is believed that the 
introduction of an account of the " places of historical 
interest " needs no apology. No attempt has been made 
to give an exhaustive treatment of any subject, but 
care has been taken to indicate how and wliere addi- 
tional information may most readily be obtained. The 
sources of information have been in every case authori- 
tative, and the editorial committee desires to express 
its most cordial thanks for the courteous cooperation of 
the ofi&cers of the various institutions and commis- 
sions represented. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Univeksities, Colleges, etc. 

Harvard University .... 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Boston University . 

Tufts College . 

Wellesley College . 

Boston College 

Lowell Institute 
Museums, Libraries, Etc. 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

Boston Society of Natural History . 

Warren Museum of Natural History 

Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

Appalachian Mountain Club . 

Museum of Fine Arts 

Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory 

State Library of Massachusetts 

Boston Public Library 

Boston Athenaeum .... 

Boston Medical Library . 
Public Works. 

Park Systems — Metropolitan, Boston, Cambridge, etc., 

Metropolitan Water Works 

Metropolitan Sewerage ...... 

Transit in Boston ....... 

Geology and Geography of the Boston District 
Places of Historical Interest .... 



Page. 

5 
21 
30 
32 
35 
39 
41 

44 
46 
52 
53 
55 
58 
62 
65 
67 
74 
76 



96 
101 

108 



HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



The chief seat of Harvard University, at Cambridge, may be reached 
by means of any Cambridge electric car which nins to Harvard square. 
These cars will be found at Bowdoin square, at Park square, at the Park- 
street Subway, and at nearly all of the railroad stations. Cars for 
Hai-vard square pass the Rogers Building of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology. 

For the use of the members of the Association the university has 
prepared a guide-book to Harvard University which will be distributed 
after the arrival of the members. The university, furthermore, issues 
pamphlets describing the various schools and departments of the uni- 
versity and the course of instruction of each of the divisions or depart- 
ments under the Faculty of Art and Science. 

In general, these pamphlets give lists of officers of instruction and 
government, and of students, and detailed statements concerning the 
following points: buildings, libraries, laboratories, museums, etc., re- 
quirements for admission, methods of instruction, text-books, courses of 
instruction, clinical advantages, examinations, requirements for degrees, 
prizes, scholarships, summer courses, fees, and expenses. Copies of any 
of these pamphlets may be obtained at the Publication Office of the 
university, 2 University Hall, Cambridge. 



HARVARD College, the oldest institution of learn- 
ing in America, was founded in 1636 by a vote 
passed at an adjourned meeting (Oct. 28, old style) 
of the General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay. 

In 1638 John Harvard, a non-conforming clergyman 
of England, who had been in the colony about one year, 
died at Charlestown, leaving half of his whole property, 
and his entire library (about 300 volumes), to the insti- 
tution. The value of this bequest was more than double 



Principal Scientific Institutions. 



the entire sum originally voted by the Court, and it was 
resolved to open the college at once and to give it the 
name of Harvard. The first class was formed in the 
same year. 

From this foundation has grown the present univer- 
sity, with an endowment of more than nine millions of 
dollars in quick capital, and more than five millions 
invested in buildings, libraries, laboratories, museums, 
observatories, gardens, collections, apparatus, etc. 

At the present time the university includes the fol- 
lowing departments where instruction is regularly given 
to students : Harvard College, the Lawrence Scien- 
tific School, the Graduate School, the Divinity School, 
the Law School, the Medical School, the Dental School, 
the Veterinary School, the Bussey Listitution, the Sum- 
mer School. Other departments are the Arnold Arbore- 
tum ; the University Library, which includes the College 
Library and the special libraries of the schools named 
above and of departments, — in all numbering thirty- 
four, with more than five hundred thousand books ; 
the Chemical Laboratory; the Jefferson Physical 
Laboratory ; the special laboratories of the schools before 
enumerated ; the Laboratory of the Peabody Museum 
of American Archaeology and Ethnology ; and the 
Laboratories of Zoology, Palaeontology, Entomology, 
Geology, Physical Geography, Cryptogamic and Phane- 
rogamic Botany, Mineralogy ; the Museum of Compara- 
tive Zoology ; the Botanical Museum ; the Mineralogical 
Museum ; the Peabody Museum ; the Semitic Museum ; 
the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum ; the Warren Ana- 
tomical Museum at the Medical School ; the museums of 
the various other schools ; the Botanic Garden ; the Gray 
Herbarium ; the Astronomical Observatory ; the Hemen- 



Harvard University. 



way Gymnasium ; the play-groiinds ; the boat-houses ; 
and the buiklings devoted to athletic sports. 

The College Yard and its Surroundings. 
In the College Yard, interesting from an historical 
point of view, are the older buildings — Massachu- 
setts, Harvard, Hollis, Stoughton, and Holworthy 
Halls, Holden Chapel, Wadsworth House, and Uni- 
versity Hall, in which are located the chief adminis- 
trative offices of the university. Matthews, Weld, 
Thayer, and Grays Hall represent the dormitories con- 
structed twenty or thirty years ago. Boylston Hall 
contains the Chemical Laboratory; Gore Hall the 
College Library ; Sever Hall is devoted to recitation 
and lecture rooms ; Appleton Chapel, where the relig- 
ious exercises of the university are held, adjoins the 
William Hayes Fogg Art Museum. Phillips Brooks 
House is devoted to the uses of the various religious 
societies of the college. 

Separated from the College Yard by Broadway is a 
small delta containing the Pvogers Building, formerly 
the college gymnasium, now a laboratory of the De- 
partment of Engineering. In the larger delta beyond 
Cambridge street is Memorial Hall, erected in memory 
of the Harvard men who served in the Civil War. On 
marble tablets inserted in the walls of the transept 
are inscribed the names of the men who fell in the 
war. Sanders Theatre, at the eastern side of the tran- 
sept, is used for lectures, concerts, and official ceremo- 
nials of the university ; the Dining Hall, where during 
term-time more than eleven hundred students board, 
is at the western side of the transept. On the walls 
of this hall are placed portraits and busts of the 



Principal Sciefttific Instifufions. 



founders of the university, its benefactors, and its 
illustrious graduates. Most of the memorial windows 
are the gifts of classes. In the delta, west of the 
Dining Hall, is a statue of John Harvard. In Oxford 
street, which leads from Kirkland street on the north 
of Memorial Hall, are Perkins and Conaut Halls. These, 
with Walter Hastings Hall on Holmes Field, entrance 
to which is gained from Massachusetts avenue, are 
types of the modern dormitory. The Hemenway 
Gymnasium, the building of the Lawrence Scientific 
School, the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, and the Law 
School are in Holmes Field, near the College Yard. In 
Divinity avenue, not far from Memorial Hall, are the 
Divinity School, the Peabody Museum of American 
Archseology and Ethnology, and the University Mu- 
seum, entrance to which may also be gained from 
Oxford street. The Observatory, the Botanic Garden, 
and the Herbarium are in Garden street, ten minutes' 
walk from the College Yard. Mount Auburn cars, via 
Huron avenue, which may be taken in Boston or at 
Harvard square, go near these departments. The Ath- 
letic grounds, the Soldiers' Field, the Locker Build- 
ing, and the Weld Boat-house are by the river, ten 
minutes' walk from Harvard square along Boylston 
street. 

Departments of the University. 
In matters of administration three of the depart- 
ments of the university are closely united. Harvard 
College, the Lawrence Scientific School, and the 
Graduate School are under the charge of the Faculty 
of Arts and Sciences ; and the students of these three 
departments do much of their work together, using reci- 
tation-rooms, laboratories, museums, libraries, etc., in 
common. 



Harvard University. 



To the students under its charge this Faculty offers 
more than five hundred courses of instruction. 

The Lawrence Scientific School offers eleven 
four-year courses of study : civil and topographical en- 
gineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineer- 
ing, mining and metallurgy, architecture, chemistry; 
geology, biology, anatomy, physiology and hygiene, 
science for teachers, general science. 

The Law School and the Divinity School, for the 
purposes of this book, are here only mentioned in 
passing. 

The Medical School occupies a building in Boyl- 
ston street, Boston, adjoining the Boston Public Library. 
The building contains the usual lecture and recitation 
rooms ; the laboratories of anatomy, physiology, histol- 
ogy, chemistry, bacteriology, and pathological anatomy ; 
the library, which is distributed among the several de- 
partments ; and the Warren Anatomical Museum. 

The Dental School, established in 1867, occupies a 
building in North Grove street, Boston, formerly used 
by the Medical School. In addition to the usual lecture 
and recitation rooms and laboratories the building con- 
tains a library, and a museum of over 3,000 specimens. 

The School of Vetekinary Medicine, instituted 
in the year 1882-83, is situated at and near the corner 
of Village and Lucas streets, Boston. It occupies two 
brick buildings : the Lucas street building, which con- 
tains rooms for lectures and dissections, the library, and 
the museum, and the Village street hospital, for the 
treatment and observation of sick animals. In a third 
building a free clinic is maintained in connection with 
the schooL 

The Bussey Institution, a School of Agriculture 



lo Principal Scientific Institutions. 

and Horticulture, established in execution of trusts 
created by the will of Benjamin Bussey, was opened in 
1871-72. It gives systematic instruction in agriculture, 
in useful and ornamental gardening, and in chemistry 
and natural history as applied to these arts. The 
institution is situated at the outer edge of Jamaica 
Plain, about five miles southwest of the centre of 
Boston, and close to the Forest Hills Station on the 
Providence Division of the N.Y., KH. & H. R.ll. It 
is, in general, meant for young men who intend to be- 
come practical farmers, gardeners, florists, or landscape 
gardeners ; as well as for those who will be called upon 
to manage large estates, or who wish to qualify them- 
selves to be overseers or superintendents of farms, 
country seats, i3arks, towns, highways, or public insti- 
tutions. It may serve also in special cases as a school 
for the systematic training of young men fond of 
country life or interested in natural history. 

The Arnold Arboretum was founded in 1872, by 
the trustees under the will of James Arnold, of New 
Bedford, for the purpose of scientific research and ex- 
periment in agriculture, forestry, and dendrology, and 
as a museum of trees and shrubs suited to the climate of 
Massachusetts. The arboretum occupies a portion of 
the Bussey Farm in West Roxbury, two hundred and 
twenty acres in extent, and under a special arrange- 
ment with the city of Boston is open to the public 
every day in the year from sunrise to sunset. The 
living collections are supplemented by an herbarium, 
a museum, and a library. 

The University Library. — The College Library, 
in Gore Hall, situated in the College Yard, Cambridge, 
is for the use of the whole university. In addition to 



Harvard University. ii 

this library the University Library embraces the 
libraries of the several departments of the university, 
which are classed as departmental libraries, and the 
libraries maintained in the various branches of study 
pursued under the direction of the ^Faculty of Arts and 
Sciences, which are classed as laboratory and class- 
room libraries. The several libraries now contain 
about the following numbers of bound volumes : 

Gore Hall / . . 355,600 

Lawrence Scientific School (Engineering Li- 
brary) 5,000 

Bussey Institution (Jamaica Plain) .... 3,600 

Phillips Library (Observatory) 8,600 

Botanic Garden (Herbarium Library) . . . 7,300 

Law School 40,900 

Divinity School 27,500 

Medical School (Boston) 2,200 

Museum of Comparative Zoology .... 32,000 

Peabody Museum 1,800 

Arnold Arboretum 5,800 

Fogg Museum ^100 

Seven laboratory and sixteen class-room libra- 
ries 15,200 



505,600 



The collection of pamphlets and maps in the College 
Library is very large, and is estimated to be equal in 
number to the collection of bound volumes. The depart- 
mental libraries have also considerable numbers of 
pamphlet monographs on subjects connected with their 

iln addition a large collection of photographs of paintings, sculpture, and 
architecture, and many casts. 



12 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

specialties, and these are not included in the count of 
volumes. The College Library has also a collection of 
coins. 

The catalogue of the Gore Hall collection, including 
pamphlets, is on cards, accessible to the public, and con- 
sists of two parts, the one arranged by authors, the 
other by subjects. 

Museums and Laboratories. 

The University Museum, located in Cambridge, 
comprehends the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 
the Botanical Museum, the Mineralogical Museum, the 
Natural History Laboratories, and the Peabody Mu- 
seum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. The 
Semitic Museum is for the present placed in the build- 
ing of the Peabody Museum. 

The Museum of Comparative Zoology, — This 
museum was founded in 1859 by private subscription 
and the assistance of the State of Massachusetts. In 
1876 the property in the hands of the Trustees was 
transferred to the President and Fellows of Harvard 
College. 

The exhibition-rooms open to the public are the 
Synoptic Room ; the rooms containing the systematic 
collections of mammals, birds, reptiles, iishes, mol- 
lusks, Crustacea and insects, radiates, sponges, and 
protozoa ; also the rooms devoted to the faunal collec- 
tions of Europe, of North and South America, the Indo- 
Asiatic, the African, the Australian Eealms, and the 
Atlantic and Pacific Rooms ; and the rooms devoted to 
the Quaternary, Tertiary, and Mesozoic fossils. The 
collections, so far as arranged, are open to visitors 
every week-day from 9 A.M. till 5 P.M., and on Sun- 



Harvard University. 13 

day from 1 P.M. till 5 P.M. Entrance on the south 
side of the north wing, from Divinity avenue. 

The publications of the museum consist of an annual 
Eeport (1861-1897), of an octavo Bulletin (vols, i.-xxx.), 
and of Memoirs in quarto (vols. i.-xxii.). The Bulletin 
and Memoirs are devoted to the publication of original 
work by the professors and the assistants of the museum, 
of investigations carried on by students and others in 
the different laboratories of natural history, and of 
work by specialists based upon the museum collections. 

The library of the museum is on the second floor of 
the northwest corner of the museum. It contains 
over 23,000 volumes, exclusive of 2,900 volumes of 
pamphlets and of the Whitney Library, containing 
about 5,000 volumes and nearly 1,500 pamphlets, 
making the total number of volumes 31,200, and about 
1,800 pamphlets not yet arranged. The reading-room 
is open from 9 to 1 and from 2 to 5. 

The museum includes the Laboratories of Zoology, 
Palaeontology, Entomology, Geology, and Physical 
Geography. 

The Botanical Museum. — The collections of this 
museum at present accessible to the public are on the 
third floor of the central section of the University 
Museum. They are designed to illustrate the prin- 
cipal systematic, biological, and economic relations of 
plants. The large and increasing Ware Collection 
of glass models of flowers, prepared by the artists 
Leopold and Eudolph Blaschka of Germany, occupies 
the large exhibition-room. Contiguous rooms contain 
collections of cryptogams and economic products. 

The Laboratories of Cryptogamic and Phanerogamic 
Botany are on the fifth and the second floors, respec- 
tively. 



14 Principal Scientific InsHtutions. 

The MiNERALOGicAL MusEUM. — The mineralogical 
section of the University Museum, built in 1890-91 
with a fund of about $50,000, raised wholly by sub- 
scription, forms the southern end of the University 
Museum, so far as at present completed. Entrance is 
by the south door in Oxford street. 

The exhibition-room and gallery occupy the third 
and fourth floors, and are open to the public on Wednes- 
day and Sunday afternoons from 1 to 5, and Saturday 
from 9 to 5. 

The Mineralogical Laboratories occupy a part of the 
second floor, the first floor, and the basement. 

The main mineralogical collections of the university 
are deposited here ; they contain on the ground floor 
and gallery the large systematic collection, with special 
features and collections, such as the J. Lawrence Smith 
Collection of Meteorites, the AVilliam Sturgis Bigelow 
Agates, the Hamlin Collection of Tourmalines, and many 
unique specimens presented by James A. Garland and 
others. 

The Peabody Museum of American Archeology 
AND Ethnology. — The entrance to the museum is on 
Divinity avenue. The museum is open to the public from 
9 A.M. till 5 P.M. throughout the year, Sundays and 
holidays excepted. The arrangement of the cullections 
is intended to facilitate research in general anthropol- 
ogy with special reference to American and comparative 
archaeology and ethnology. The Mary Hemenway 
Collection of Archaeology and Ethnology of the South- 
western Tribes is arranged in the second gallery and in 
the large hall on the floor above. The collection 
obtained from the ancient ruins of Copan, by the special 
expeditions of the museum, is arranged in the large 



Harvard University. 15 

hall on the third floor. The crowded condition of the 
hall will not permit its being opened to the public, but 
visitors will be admitted by applying at the office. The 
Anthropological Library contains 1,838 volumes and 
2,479 pamphlets. The publications of the museum con- 
sist of Annual Eeports, Special Papers, and Memoirs. 

Th6 Semitic Museum. — This inuseum was founded 
in 1889 by Jacob H. Schiff, and was opened on May 
13, 1891. It occupies temporarily a gallery in the 
new section of the Peabody Museum building, and is 
ojDen to students and the public daily, except Sundays 
and holidays, from 9 A.M. till 5 P.M. The object of 
the museum is to gather such materials as shall illus- 
trate the Semitic instruction given in the university, 
provide students and other specialists with the means 
of original research, and give to the general visitor as 
complete a view as possible of the products of Semitic 
art and archaeology. 

The collection contains manuscripts, coins, photo- 
graphs, Babylonian-Assyrian seals, cuneiform tablets of 
clay and stone, Phoenician glassware, and a large num- 
ber of casts of the finest of the Semitic monuments in 
the European museums. 

The William Hayes Fogg Art Museum. — This 
museum, situated in the College Yard, facing Broadway, 
was founded by Mrs. Elizabeth Eogg, of New York, 
in memory of her husband, whose name it bears. The 
building is of two stories, with a large lecture-room, 
having a seating capacity of about five hundred, 
attached. On the ground floor is a large hall for casts, 
with five smaller rooms for casts and other objects. 
The upper floor has a large gallery and four smaller 
rooms for the exhibition of works of art and for admin- 



1 6 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

istration. The collections thus far consist of casts 
from important works in sculpture of the ancient, 
mediseval, and Eenaissance epochs, a classified collec- 
tion of electrotypes from Greek and Eoman coins, a 
small series of Greek vases, and a large and growing 
collection of photographs of works of art of all epochs 
and countries, including architecture, sculpture, and 
painting. These photographs are conveniently classi- 
fied and catalogued, and are at all times accessible to 
members of the university and other visitors. 

In the larger east room on the upper floor is deposited 
the Gray Collection of Engravings. This important 
and very valuable collection was bequeathed to Harvard 
College, with provision for its increase and maintain- 
ance, by the Hon. Francis Calley Gray, LL.D., of 
the Class of 1809. 

The museum is open daily from 9 until 5 o'clock, and 
from 7 until 9 in the evening. On Sundays it is open 
from 1 until 5 in the afternoon. 

In addition to the museums above named the uni- 
versity possesses museums at the Medical and Dental 
Schools and the School of VeterinaPwY Medicine. 
These are mentioned under the description of the 
several schools. 

The Chemical Laboratory occupies the whole of 
Boylston Hall, erected in 1857 with a fund bequeathed 
by the late Ward Nicholas Boylston, which is situated in 
the College Yard. Besides several private laboratories 
and preparation-rooms the building contains seven large 
laboratories for students. 

The Jefferson Physical Laboratory was the gift 
of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, of Boston, who, in 1881, 
gave ^115,000 to the college for a physical laboratory, 



Harvard University. 17 



on condition that f 75,000 should be raised by subscrip- 
tion and the income appropriated to its support. All 
the instruction in physics, by recitations, lectures, and 
experimental work, to students of Harvard College, of 
the Lawrence Scientific School, and of the Graduate 
School, is given in this building, which accommodates 
the various physical cabinets. The building is on 
Holmes Field, Cambridge. 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN. 

The Botanic Garden, founded in 1807, occupies about 
seven acres of land at the corner of Linnsean and 
Garden streets, Cambridge. More than five thousand 
species of flowering plants are cultivated for educa- 
tional and scientific purposes. 

The range of greenhouses comprises eight divisions 
assigned respectively to: (1) Succulents. (2) Aus- 
tralian plants. (3) Mexican plants and Ferns. (4) 
Palms and their allies. (5) Tropical orchids, aroids, 
etc. (6) Economic plants of hot climates. (7) :N'ative 
plants forced into early blooming. (8) Plants grown 
for experimental use. 

The space at the northwestern part of the garden is 
devoted to an exhibition of a large number of our North 
American species, with special reference to their mor- 
phology. The ground below the terrace is filled with 
illustrations of the orders and principal genera of the 
plants of the United States, together with species from 
the Old World for comparison. 

The grounds and greenhouses are open to the public 
daily, from sunrise to sunset. 



Principal Scientific Institutions. 



THE GRAY HERBARIUM. 

The Gray Herbarium occupies a building in the 
Botanic Garden. The collection, presented to Harvard 
University in 1864 by the late Professor Asa Gray, 
now contains about two hundred and fifty thousand 
sheets of specimens, and is the result of more than sixty 
years of continuous growth. It embraces all orders of 
flowering plants, vascular cryptogams, and bryophytes ; 
the fungi, lichens, and algse have now been trans- 
ferred to the Cryptogamic Herbarium in the Botan- 
ical Division of the University Museum. The Gray 
Herbarium is rich in type specimens of species and 
varieties, in standard and rare phsenogamic eocsiccita, 
and in the possession of the greater part of the speci- 
mens which have been critically studied in the prepara- 
tion of the " Synoptical Flora of North America." 

The bryophytes, chiefly represented by the extensive 
and valuable collections of Sullivant, James, and Tay- 
lor, are not accessible for general consultation. Other 
parts of the herbarium may be consulted, under super- 
vision of the staff, by advanced students and other 
properly qualified persons. Visiting specialists receive 
such facilities for work as can be given without inter- 
rupting the regular duties of the staff. 

The library of the herbarium, now including more 
than twelve thousand carefully selected volumes and 
pamphlets, is open for consultation to all persons in- 
terested in botany. 

The scientific publications of the herbarium at pres- 
ent embrace the following classes of work : I. The 
continuation of the " Synoptical Flora of North Amer- 
ica." II. The issue from time to time of " Contributions 



Hanaf'd University. 19 

from the G-ray Herbarium of Harvard University,'^ a 
series of technical papers devoted chiefly to the char- 
acterization of new species and monographing of genera. 
III. The preparation of lesser articles, both technical 
and popular, published in various scientific journals. 

THE ASTROXOMICAL OBSERVATORY. 

The Astronomical Observatory, between Garden street 
and Concord avenue, in Cambridge, was established by 
means of a subscription initiated in 1843. The Sears 
Tower was completed in 1846, and the great refractor 
was received at the close of the same year. In 1848 
Edward Bromfield Phillips, of the Class of 1845, 
bequeathed to the university the sum of one hundred 
thousand dollars for the benefit of the observatory. 
In 1885 Eobert Treat Paine, of the Class of 1822, 
bequeathed his entire fortune, amounting to more than 
a quarter of a million of dollars, to the university, for 
the observatory. 

The observatory was founded for the purpose of 
scientific research in all departments of astronomy. 
To fulfil this purpose it has been equipped with instru- 
ments of the first class and with a library of more 
than twenty thousand works (of which about half are 
pamphlets), principally relating to astronomical sub- 
jects. It has likewise been provided with funds for 
the maintenance and increase of its equipment and 
library, and for the payment of its current expenses, 
special provision having also been made for the publi- 
cation of its observations. 

One of the principal departments of the observatory 
is the Henry Draper Memorial, maintained by Mrs. 
Draper, to permit the study on a large scale of the 
spectra and other ]ohysical properties of the fixed stars. 



Principal Scientific Institittions. 



The Boyclen Emid furnishes the means of establish- 
ing an observing station, on a site 8,000 feet high, 
near Arequipa, Peru. In addition a series of meteo- 
rological stations has recently been established, crossing 
the Andes at the elevations of 100, 4,150, 8,060, 13,300, 
15,600, 19,200, 11,000, and 3,000 feet. 

In cooperation with the Blue Hill Meteorological 
Observatory, under the direction of Mr. Rotch, meteo- 
rological observations are maintained, and the results 
published in the Annals of the observatory. 

The observatory is now provided with a photographic 
telescope of greater size than that of any similar instru- 
ment hitherto constructed. This telescope is the gift 
of Miss C. W. Bruce, of New York. Its object-glass 
consists of four lenses, each 24 inches in aperture. 
The work for which it is specially designed is the pro- 
duction of stellar charts and photographs of stellar 
spectra. This instrument is now mounted at Arequipa, 
and is in use every clear evening. 

By the mutual consent of astronomers the Kiel and 
Harvard observatories have been selected as the cen- 
tres for the prompt announcement of astronomical dis- 
coveries. 

Forty assistants take part in the work of the obser- 
vatory. The results obtained are published in a series 
of Annals, and now fill thirty-six quarto volumes. The 
preparation of these volumes occupies a large part of 
the force at the observatory in Cambridge. Besides 
this labor a large amount of observation is done there, 
several instruments being kept in constant use. The 
largest of these are the fifteen-inch and six-inch equa- 
torial telescopes, the eight-inch transit circle, the eleven- 
inch Draper photographic telescope, the eight-inch 
photographic telescope, and the meridian photometer. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE 
OF TECHNOLOGY. 



Administrative offices, Departments of Mining, English, Mathematics, 
Drawing, History, and Economics, 491 Boylston street; Departments 
of Physics and Chemistry, 525 Boylston street; Department of Civil and 
Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, Biology, Geology, and Naval 
Architecture, Trinity place (near Copley square) ; Workshops, Garrison 
street (near Huntington avenue). 

Catalogues and other publications may be obtained at the Secretary's 
office, Rogers Building. 

THE Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
was opened to students in the year 1865, after 
four years spent in preparation by Prof. William Bar- 
ton Eogers, its first President, and his co-workers, 
men of science and of business. Its connection with 
the State has been marked by a generous grant of 
land, in what is now a central position in Boston. 
The State has also aided the institute by a gift of 
^100,000, by a fund of like amount for scholarships, 
and by an allotment of one-third of the national grants 
to the State under the Acts of 1862 and 1890; also, 
since 1895, by a gift of $25,000 per annum. The larger 
part of its endowment is, however, derived from gifts 
by private individuals. 

The institute was founded by President Eogers, at a 
time when the few scientific schools of the country were 
chiefly occupied with teaching civil and mining engineer- 
ing and chemistry, and Avere often annexed in a more 
or less accredited way to colleges. The new school of 
applied science was intended by its founders to have an 



Principal Scientific Institutions. 



independent existence, and to offer a curriculum of a 
sufficiently wide scope to constitute a liberal education. 
This plan, begun under President Eogers, was con- 
tinued with singular energy and faithfulness by his 
successors, Presidents John D. Runkle and Prancis A. 
Walker, and the school now gives the degree of Bachelor 
of Science in twelve courses of professional studies and 
one course of general studies, each with a prescribed 
curriculum. 

Young men about the average age of nineteen are 
taken with the preparation afforded by good secondary 
schools, and are fitted, by a four years' course, to enter 
upon the professional work of civil, mechanical, elec- 
trical, naval, sanitary, chemical, or mining engineers, 
metallurgists, geologists, physicists, chemists, biolo- 
gists, or architects. These courses have sprung into 
existence as the need for them has become apparent, 
and the readiness with which any branch of technical 
education leads to employment appears to determine, 
in large measure, the number of students taking a 
given course. Other scientific schools have since es- 
tablished a similarly complete curriculum, and partic- 
ularly in Germany and in England educational effort 
has turned in this direction with large expenditures 
and an abundant equipment of industrial museums; 
but nowhere have the means for experiments on an 
industrial scale in certain branches of engineering been 
developed so completely as in Boston. 

The degree in the above-named courses was conferred 
this year upon 198 students following a prescribed cur- 
riculum, while many others took elective studies not 
leading to a degree. The total number of students 
during the past year v/as 1,198. Graduate courses, 



Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 23 

summer schools, and free evening courses, maintained 
by the Lowell Institute, supplement the work already 
mentioned. 

Mathematics, drawing, chemistry, and physics form 
the basis of the technical studies of the school and are 
a necessary preparation for them, while considerable 
time is also expended upon modern languages, English 
literature, histor}^, and political economy. 

The exigencies of a situation in a large city, and the 
absorption of funds for every-day work, have precluded 
the possibility of a display of scientific collections, of 
buildings or grounds, but the institute offers for the 
inspection of members of the American Association 
the evidences, in its laboratories, drawing-rooms, and 
work-shops, of some of the features of its practical 
teaching. (Some of these laboratories are, however, 
undergoing transformations in consequence of the 
erection of a new building to be used by the archi- 
tectural, biological, and engineering departments.) 

Laboratories. 

The chief and dominating feature of the Institute of 
Technology, from the material point of view, consists 
of its numerous and well-equipped laboratories. The 
buildings of the institute in addition to all drawing, 
recitation, and lecture rooms, and libraries, comprise 
eight laboratories or groups of laboratories : 
I. The Kidder Chemical Laboratories. 
II. The Rogers Laboratory of Physics. 

III. The John Cummings Laboratory of Mining, 

Engineering, and jMetallurg}^ 

IV. The Engineering Laboratories, including the 

Laboratory of Applied Mechanics, the Steam 
Laboratory, and the Hydraulic Laboratory. 



2 4 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

y. The Biological Laboratories. ^ 

VI. The Architectural Laboratory. 

VII. The Geological Laboratory. 

YIII. The Mechanical Laboratories or Workshops. 

I. Kidder Chemical Laboratories. — All regular 
students of the institute receive their first labora- 
tory training in the Laboratory of General Chemistry. 
The time devoted to this work is sixty hours in the first 
term of the first year. In the second term most 
students take qualitative analysis to the same extent, 
while those in the chemical course devote one hundred 
and eighty hours to the subject. 

The Laboratories of Analytical Chemistry are 
devoted not only to the needs of students in the chemical 
courses, but largely also to the needs of those coming 
from the departments of mining engineering, sanitary 
engineering, biology, physics, and geology. 

Besides these laboratories for large classes there are 
a considerable number of smaller special laboratories, 
used mainly by students in chemistry, which provide 
for a wide range of technical and scientific work, includ- 
ing sanitary, organic, and industrial chemistry and 
textile coloring. 

The Chemical Laboratories occupy the upper floors of 
the Walker Building. They are 18 in number, with 
accommodations for more than 600 students. 

More detailed information may be found in the 
special circular on the Department of Chemistry. 

II. EoGERS Laboratory of Physics. — In this 
laboratory is given instruction in pure and applied 
physics, including technical electricity. The laboratory 
instruction is accompanied by lectures and other class- 
work. 



Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 25 



The principal divisions of tlie Eogers Laborator}' are 
as follows : the Laboratory of General Physics, de- 
signed for instruction in the principles and methods of 
physical measurement; the Laboratory of Electrical 
Measurements, for the study of the various methods of 
refined scientific and technical electrical measurement 
and testing; the Laboratory of Heat Measurements, 
for the study of advanced problems in thermometry, 
pyrometry, and calorimetry ; the Laboratory of Physical 
Chemistry, devoted to modern thermo- and electro- 
chemistry ; the Laboratory of Acoustics, designed 
for the study of acoustic and telephonic phenomena; 
and the Laboratory of Electrical Engineering, devoted 
to the study and testing of dynamo-electric machinery 
and other apparatus of like character. 

Prior to entering upon laboratory work in physics 
the students have laboratory practice in chemistry and 
an extended course of lectures and recitations in gen- 
eral physics, as well as a considerable amount of 
advanced mathematics. 

Besides the instruction in already known facts, prin- 
ciples, and methods of physics, facilities are furnished 
for physical research, particularly in electricity, heat, 
sound, and physical chemistry, and the results of many 
such investigations have been published from the lab- 
oratory. 

The physical laboratories occupy the basement and 
first floor, with a portion of the second floor of the 
Walker Building, sixteen rooms in all. The number of 
students working in them last year was about 330. 

Detailed information in regard to the laboratories 
and their equipment will be found in the special circular 
on the courses in Physics and Electrical Engineering. 



2 6 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

III. JOHX CUMMINGS LABORATORY OF MiNIXG 

Engineering and Metallurgy. — Unlike the labora- 
tories of physics and chemistry, this laboratory is de- 
signed mainly to meet the specific professional needs of 
students in a particular department, who have already 
received general training in chemistry and physics. 
Instruction is given in the mechanical preparation of 
ores by crushing and concentrating machinery, and in 
assaying and smelting. At the same time students 
receive instruction in the proper chemical methods in 
the Kidder Laboratories, as before mentioned. The 
equipment of the laboratory has been designed on such 
a scale that the various processes can be applied to 
quantities of material large enough to illustrate 
methods, but not large enough to be burdensome. This 
gives the student preparation of direct value for his 
future professional needs. 

A special circular gives full details in regard to the 
work of this department. 

IV. Engineering Laboratories. — Work in the 
Engineering Laboratories is taken in the third or 
fourth years, or both, in the courses in civil, mechanical, 
electrical, chemical, and sanitary engineering, and naval 
architecture. The number of students for the past term 
was about 270. The work consists mainly of tests of 
the strength of materials in the Laboratory of Applied 
Mechanics ; tests upon steam engines in the Steam 
Laboratory; and measurements of the flow and pres- 
sure of water under various conditions in the Hy- 
draulic Laboratory. The work is conducted by small 
parties of students each under the direction of an 
instructor, and is so organized that the results obtained 
are to a great extent of direct value in the deter- 



Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 27 

mination of engineering constants for use in the pro- 
fession. 

Tests of the strength of materials are made upon 
specimens of large size ; for example, by an Emery test- 
ing machine of 300,000 pounds' capacity, capable of 
containing a compression specimen of 18 feet or a 
tension specimen of 12 feet in length. 

In addition to the work done in the laboratories 
under the prescribed course of instruction complete 
tests of large power plants are frequently carried on 
by the fourth-year students under the direction of the 
professor in immediate charge of the laboratory. 

The laboratories will occupy next year a total floor- 
space of about 21,380 square feet. 

A special circular with plans and description of the 
Engineering Laboratories is now in press. 

VIII. Mechanical Laboratories or Workshops. 
— The workshops of the Institute of Technology were 
founded in 1876. In 1883 a new and extensive series 
of shops were constructed, covering about 24,000 square 
feet of ground. They contain an ample equipment for 
instruction in carpentry and wood-turning, pattern- 
making, foundry work, metal-turning, chipping and 
filing, forging, and machine-tool work. The shops are 
laboratories in mechanics ; and the use of them is in- 
tended to be as scholarly as the use made of the other 
laboratories of the institute. 



A description of the collections and rooms of the 
Architectural, Biological, and Geological Departments 
is omitted because they are in process of removal to a 
new building. Special circulars may be had on applica- 
tion. 



Prijicipal Scientific Insiitutiojis. 



Libraries. 

The proximity of the Boston Public Library has re- 
lieved the institute of the necessit}^ of accumulating 
large collections of books for general purposes. Books 
are regarded as apparatus of instruction, and the col- 
lections are, therefore, distributed in a number of li- 
braries, ten in all, in direct connection with the several 
departments. The total number of books is 47,000. 

The General Library is to be situated in Koom 16 
of the Rogers Building, and comprises works on educa- 
tional subjects, general books of reference, and the 
collections of the Departments of English Literature 
and Modern Languages. In addition to the card cata- 
logues in the separate libraries there is a general card 
catalogue in this room which shows where every book 
belonging to the institute may be found. 

The nine departmental libraries include the Engineer- 
ing Library, for the Departments of Civil, Sanitary, and 
Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, with 
about 9,000 volumes ; the William Ripley Nichols 
Chemical Library with 7,400 volumes ; the Physical 
Library with 6,000 volumes ; the Architectural Library 
with 2,200 volumes and over 6,000 photographs ; the 
Library of History and Economics with 9,000 volumes ; 
the Mining Library with 2,000 volumes ; the Biological 
Library with 2,100 volumes; the Geological Library 
with 1,800 volumes ; and the Mathematical Library 
with 560 volumes. About 850 serial publications 
are received at the institute, forming one of the 
largest collections of scientific journals, magazines, 
reviews, and reports to be found anywhere in the 
world. 



Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 29 



SOCIETY OF ARTS. 

The society was an integral part of the original plan 
of the institute. It aims to awaken and maintain an 
interest in the practical applications of the sciences, 
by holding semi-monthly meetings, at which reports of 
inventions, discoveries, and matters of scientific and 
technical interest are presented. 

PUBLICATIONS OF THE INSTITUTE. 

Besides the various departmental circulars mentioned 
above, and the Annual Catalogue and President's Eeport, 
the Institute publishes the " Technology Quarterly," 
containing the proceedings of the Society of Arts and 
papers representing the results of original investiga- 
tion carried on at the institute. 

TECHNOLOGY CLUB. 

The Technology Club aims to promote the common 
social interests of past and present officers and students 
of the institute. By the courtesy of the club its house, 
71 Newbury street, close by the Rogers Building, is 
open to members of the American Association during 
the meeting. 



BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 



The central oflSces of the university are at 12 Somerset street, where 
copies of the Year Book and other publications may be obtained. The 
hall of the Law Department is open in the forenoon daily, during the 
summer, and access to other departments may be obtained on application 
at the Treasurer's office. 



THE university received its charter in the year 1869. 
Twenty-five years later it had over 1,000 students. 
The growth of the last three years is shown by the 
following registrations : 1,270, 1,327, 1,454. The history 
of the university has been presented by C. K. Dillaway 
in Winsor's '' Memorial History of Boston," and by Dr. 
George Gary Bush in the " History of Higher Educa- 
tion in Massachusetts," published by the Bureau of 
Education, Washington, D.C., pages 341-363. 

The College of Liberal Arts is domiciled in Sleeper 
Hall, at 12 Somerset street. Attendance the past year 
was 455. The college maintains no independent labo- 
ratories or staff of instructors in the natural sciences, 
the classes receiving their scientific instruction in the 
laboratories of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 
ogy and of the Boston Society of Natural History. 

The School of Theology, formerly the Boston Theo- 
logical Seminary, was founded in 1839. Attendance 
the past year, 170. Its hall is a little west of the 
State House, at numbers 70 and 72 Mount Vernon 
street. 

The School of Law is on Ashburton place, midway 
between the State House and the new Court House. 



Boston University. 3 ^ 



This hall is the latest and finest belonging to the 
university, having cost, with the land, a quarter of a 
million dollars. Students, the past year, numbered 433. 

The School of Medicine is on East Concord street, 
opposite the City Hospital and adjacent to the Massa- 
chusetts Homoeopathic Hospital. It has 52 teachers 
and 195 students. 

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in Sleeper 
Hall has 100 candidates for advanced degrees. During 
the past year the students in the university already 
possessing literary or professional degrees came from 
104 American and foreign colleges, universities, and 
professional schools. The list of these may be seen in 
the University Year Book. 

The assets of the university above liabilities at the 
close of the last fiscal year were $1,614,053.37. The 
receipts of the year were $237,967.39. 

The President of the university is Eev. William 
F. Warren, LL.D. ; the President of the Corporation is 
the Hon. William Claflin, LL.D., ex-Governor of the 
Commonwealth. 



TUFTS COLLEGE. 



The college is situated on the commanding eminence known as 
College Hill, on the boundary line between Medford and Somerville. It 
is about four miles from Boston, on the Southern Division of the Boston 
& Maine Railroad ; twenty-four trains daily each way stop at its station, 
— Tufts College, — and furnish easy means of communication with Boston. 



TUFTS College was founded in 1854, and graduated 
its first class in 1857. Under its charter it is 
empowered to confer such degrees as are usually con- 
ferred by colleges in New England. Its total endow- 
ment is estimated at $1,800,000. 

The present organization of the college comprises the 
College of Letters, the Divinity School, and the Medical 
School. The College of Letters offers undergraduate 
courses leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, 
Bachelor of Philosophy, and Bachelor of Science. 
The ground of promotion and graduation is the intellect- 
ual attainment of the individual student, and not a 
fixed requirement of a certain number of years of study ; 
but four years are regularly required to complete work 
for a degree, the completion of the course in three 
years being possible only in exceptional cases and for 
especially high standing. The courses in arts and 
philosophy offer a wide range of choice of studies, 
while those in science consist chiefly of prescribed work 
on special lines. 

The plan of study in the former cases is at once lib- 
eral, controlled, and elastic. The students have large 



Tufts College. 33 



liberty in choosing their work, but they are brought 
into personal advisory relations with the heads of the 
departments in which they elect to do special work, and 
under their directing influence a reasonable amount of 
guided specialization is provided for. 

The degree of Bachelor of Science is offered for the 
satisfactory completion of four-year courses in general 
science, chemistry, biology, medical preparatory studies, 
civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering. The 
general science course is designed to prepare for science- 
teaching in schools ; the chemistry course to prepare 
teachers and practical chemists ; the biology course to 
secure in biology results similar to those sought in 
the special course in chemistry ; and the medical pre- 
paratory course for those intending to study medicine. 
The three engineering courses of Tufts have long held a 
high reputation for the practical quality of their work 
and the thoroughness with which they prepare men for 
actual service. 

Tufts College has taken for ten years an advanced 
position in its requirements for admission, and has rec- 
ognized a wide equivalence in educational values. 

The plant of the college comprises fourteen buildings : 
Ballou Hall, containing class-rooms, the physical and 
electrical laboratories, and the offices of the President, 
Secretary, and Eegistrar ; Goddard Chapel ; the Barnum 
Museum, with thoroughly equipped biological and geo- 
logical laboratories and a choice collection illustrating 
the various branches of natural history ; the Goddard 
Gymnasium ; three men's dormitories ; the Library 
Building, containing thirty-five thousand bound volumes 
and about sixteen thousand pamphlets ; Commons Hall, 
containing dining-hall and post-office ; the Chemical 



34 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

Building ; Miner and Paige Halls, respectively recitation 
hall and dormitory of the Divinity School ; the Brom- 
lield-Pearson School, with machine shops and draughting 
rooms ; and Metcalf Hall, the women's dormitory. 

The college term lasts from the middle of September 
until the middle of June. The tuition fee is one hun- 
dred dollars annually, except in the engineering courses, 
where it is one hundred and twenty dollars annually. 
There is a charge of ten dollars for physical culture, 
one dollar for the reading room, and some minor charges 
for material used by students working in the laborato- 
ries. 

The college publishes a comprehensive catalogue 
yearly, and the Tufts College Studies, embodying the 
results of original scientific investigations. The Presi- 
dent of the College is Rev. Elmer H. Capen, D.D. 



WELLESLEY COLLEGE. 



The college is situated in the town of Wellesley, fifteen miles west of 
Boston. It is readily accessible by the Boston & Albany Railroad, and 
is connected with the Newtons and adjoining towns on the east, and with 
South Framingham on the west, by electric lines. 



WELLESLEY is a college for women exclusively, 
and was f onnded by Henry F. Durant, a Boston 
lawyer. It was incorporated in 1870 under the laws of 
Massachusetts, with power to ''confer such honors, 
degrees, and diplomas as are granted or conferred by 
any university, college, or seminary of learning in this 
Commonwealth," and was opened in 1875 with 26 in- 
structors and 300 students. It has now conferred the 
Bachelor's Degree upon nearly 1,600 young women ; 
the Degree M.A. upon 64 Its curriculum is broadly 
elective, the element of choice entering into about four- 
fifths of the work requisite to the first degree. Twenty- 
three departments offer 206 courses. The teaching force 
numbers 76. The library contains upwards of 48,000 
volumes. 

College Hall, the first building, is still the adminis- 
trative centre and the largest dormitory. It contains 
also the library, the present chapel, lecture and class 
rooms, as well as several laboratories. Stone Hall and 
seven cottages complete the dormitory capacity. Music, 
chemistry, and art are provided Avith separate build- 
ings, and a new chapel is in process of erection. 



36 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

From the start, Wellesley has aimed to give full 
opportunities for the study of science. In the third 
year of its work the college had already distinct 
departments of botany, physics, chemistry, and zoology, 
separately officered. The study of geology and mineral- 
ogy was organized as a distinct department in 1886. 
A brief statement of the equipment and scope of each 
department is subjoined. 

The subject of Botany is accommodated with ample 
quarters at Stone Hall. These consist of three separate 
laboratories for the use of students in general morphol- 
ogy, cryptogamic and physiological botany, witli lecture- 
rooms, herbarium, and private laboratories. 

Undergraduate courses begin with study of general 
morphology and principles of classification. Advanced 
systematic and economic botany occupy a second year. 
Alternative with this is a study of the leading groups 
of cryptogams. A third j^ear offers vegetable histology 
and physiolog}^, alternative with a course in medical 
botany. Graduate work, involving independent labora- 
tory investigation, is conducted in two courses : embry- 
ology and other special topics, and advanced study of 
cryptogamic groups. Laboratory work is followed by 
recitations, demonstrations, and lectures. The labora- 
tories furnish microscopes, microscopical accessories, 
physical and chemical appliances, and other requisites 
for independent research. The botanical club gives 
stated opportunities for general discussion. The herba- 
rium numbers 14,000 species, and the botanical museum 
4,000 specimens. The botanical library contains 16,000 
volumes and 1,200 pamphlets. 

The laboratories of the Department of Zoology are 
on the fourth and fifth floors of College Hall. The 



Wellesley College. 37 



courses offered are as follows : one in general biology, 
illustrative of the fundamental principles which govern 
all life ; one in general zoology, consisting of studies 
on the great types of animal life ; one in vertebrate 
anatomy and embryology ; one in histology ; one in 
human and comparative physiology. In addition to 
these, one course is offered in the pedagogics of zoology 
and another in philosox^hic zoology, in which the great 
problems of the science are discussed. These courses 
are accepted as preparatory to the study of medicine. 
Opportunity is given for field work in the observation 
of animals in their haunts, and for the systematic study 
of their structure, functions, and development. 

In Chemistry two lecture-rooms and five laboratories, 
supplied with all necessary apparatus, offer accommo- 
dations for 225 students. The seven courses cover 
general chemistry, qualitative and quantitative analy- 
sis, organic chemistry, and chemical theory. 

The chemical laboratories are in a separate building, 
which contains a reading-room, library, and large 
lecture-room, in addition to general chemistry, analyti- 
cal and organic laboratories. The rooms are all con- 
veniently arranged, and well equipped with modern 
appliances for successful work. 

The Department of Physics, located at College Hall, 
occupies a lecture-room, a private laboratory, labora- 
tories for students, dark rooms for photometry and 
photography, a dynamo and engine room, and a carpen- 
try and repair room with lathe. The apparatus, which 
includes fine instruments of precision, is valued at 
$13,000. The work offered aims to give a thorough 
knowledge of the foundation principles of physics, and 
of the experimental and mathematical methods by 



38 Principal Scientific Instihitions, 

which these have been discovered. Courses in meteorol- 
ogy and physical astronomy are also conducted by the 
department. 

The Department of Geology and Mineralogy offers, 
in addition to introductory general courses in these 
subjects, a course in advanced geography. Interpreted 
by the light of geology, the physical features of the 
land become more significant to the student, while 
the influence of these features upon the customs and 
conditions of the inhabitants gives the subject a living 
interest. 

The fee for tuition is $175 per annum ; that for 
board, $225. The college is practically without endow- 
ment for general uses. Supplied by the founder with 
ample and attractive grounds and with the nucleus of 
a fine equipment, Wellesley remains to-day dependent 
upon receipts from board and tuition fees for running 
expenses and repairs, for new buildings, and all other 
enlargement upon the original outfit. 

The President of the college is Dr. Julia J. Irvine. 
The President of the Board of Trustees is Kev. Alex- 
ander McKenzie, D.D. 



BOSTON COLLEGE. 



The college proper is situated upon James street, near the New Eng- 
land Conservatory of Music, but entrance into the building may also be 
made from the residence of the professors, 761 Harrison avenue. 



BOSTON College, the leading Catholic educational 
institution in Boston, was incorporated on May 
25, 1863 ; classes were first opened on Sept. 5, 1864. 
The college is under the direction of the Fathers of the 
Society of Jesus, and follows the traditional methods of 
the famous ^' Ratio Studiorum," with those additions to 
the course that have been called for by the progress of 
modern times. Beginning with twenty-five students 
and steadily increasing year by year in numbers, it now 
has nearly five hundred pupils upon its rolls. 

Education is understood by the Jesuit professors as 
the full and harmonious development of all those facul- 
ties that are distinctive of man. Such studies, sciences, 
or languages are consequently chosen as will most effec- 
tively further this end. If two or more sciences give 
similar training to some mental faculty, that one is 
chosen which combines the most effective training with 
the largest and most fundamental knowledge. The 
studies, therefore, are so graded and classified as to be 
adapted to the mental growth of the student and to the 
scientific unfolding of knowledge ; they are so chosen 
and communicated that the student may gradually and 
harmoniously reach that measure of culture which be- 
longs to a college graduate. 



40 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

It is fundamental in the system of the Society of Jesus 
that different studies have distinct and peculiar educa- 
tional values. Mathematics, the natural sciences, lan- 
guage and history, are complementary instruments of 
education to which the doctrine of equivalence cannot be 
applied. 

The principal work of the first two years of the 
collegiate course is the training of the imagination and 
the cultivation of literary taste and stjde. The develop- 
ment of the critical powers is the main purpose of the 
third year. The last year of the course develops the 
reasoning powers by the severe discipline of logic, 
metaphysics, ethics, higher mathematics, and natural 
sciences. 

The President of the college is Eev. W. G. Read 
Mullan, S.J. 



THE LOWELL INSTITUTE. 



THE Lowell Institute, one of the most important 
and noteworthy of the educational establishments 
of Boston, is peculiar in that it has no buildings, but 
provides annually numerous courses of instruction — • 
elementary, popular, and advanced — in a great variety 
of subjects. 

The Lowell Institute was founded by John Lowell, 
Jr., of Boston, merchant, who died in Bombay, March 
4, 1836, leaving by will one-half his fortune for the 
support of free public lectures in the city of Boston. 
The foundation became operative on Dec. 31, 1839, when 
a series of free public lectures of the highest class 
was inaugurated with an address by Edward Everett, 
who was followed in order by Prof. Benjamin Silliman, 
Sr., of Yale, on Geology, Dr. John G. Palfrey on the 
Evidences of Christianity, and Prof. Thomias ISTuttall, 
of Harvard, on Botany. 

The responsibility of giving form, success, and useful- 
ness to the bequest of the founder rested upon his cousin 
John Amory Lowell, who was constituted by him sole 
Trustee with power to appoint his own successors, each 
Trustee, successively, to have similar powers ; the only 
restriction being that preference must be given to some 
competent male descendant, if any, of the testator's 
grandfather, and of the name of Lowell. 

At the time of the establishment of the lectures (in 
1839-40) the fund of the Lowell Institute amounted to 



42 Principal Sciejitific Institutions. 

about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; but 
under the operation of a singularly wise provision of 
the testator, by which a portion (one-tenth) of the in- 
come must be added annually to the principal, and 
under the able financial management of the original 
Trustee, John Amory Lowell, and the present Trustee, 
his son and successor, Augustus Lowell, the fund has 
not only allowed the number of lectures annually given 
to be multiplied many fold, but has also made it pos- 
sible for the Trustee to increase the sums paid to 
lecturers — thus steadily maintaining and raising the 
standard of instruction, while yet greatly extending 
its range. At the same time the principal fund has 
been faithfully conserved and materially strengthened. 
According to the will of the testator no money can be 
spent in buildings. Hence the lectures must be given 
in halls leased or donated for the purpose. At present, 
between five hundred and six hundred free public lect- 
ures are annually provided by the Lowell Institute. 
The principal (poi^ular) series is given in Huntington 
Hall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another 
series of more advanced and special lectures, often to 
small classes, is given by professors of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology, in the class-rooms or 
laboratories of the Institute. Lectures to teachers are 
given under the ausi)ices of the Boston Society of Nat- 
ural History ; lectures to workinguien and others, under 
the auspices of the Wells Memorial Institute and the 
Young Men's Christian Association. A school of de- 
sign, known as the " Lowell Free School of Practical 
Design," is also maintained, under the auspices of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Some of the most eminent men of their time have 



The Lowell Institute. 43 



been lecturers in the Lowell Institute, and more than a 
hundred volumes have been i3ublished corresponding to, 
and largely the outcome of, lectures delivered before it 
— the total number of which is now more than four 
thousand. 

The work of the Lowell Institute is directed by the 
sole Trustee with the assistance of Prof. William T. 
Sedgwick, the Curator. 

Further information may be found in " The History 
of the Lowell Institute," by Harriette Knight Smith. 
(Boston : Lamson, Wolffe, & Co.) 



AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS 
AND SCIENCES. 



10^ Beacon street, near the State House. Open from 10 A.M. to 
1 P.M. and (Saturdays excepted) 2 to 4 P.^I. 



THIS is the oldest scientific bvody in the State and 
with the exception of the American Philosophical 
Society of Philadelphia, in the conntry. The Common- 
wealth granted it a charter while the Eevolutionary 
war was in progress (May 4, 1780), and among its 
charter members were John and Samuel Adams and 
John Hancock. John Adams, John Quincy Adams, 
and Charles Francis Adams have been successively 
Presidents, their united incumbencies covering thirty- 
nine years. It was enacted in the charter that the first 
meeting should be called by Governor Bowdoin (who 
became its first President) " in the philosophy chamber 
in the University of Cambridge." The " design and 
institution " of the Academy were stated at length, clos- 
ing with the words : " in fine, to cultivate every art and 
science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, 
dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and vir- 
tuous people." George Washington was chosen a 
Fellow at the first election held. 

It is now divided into three classes, covering the 
"physical and mathematical," the "natural and physi- 
ological," and the " moral and political " sciences ; and 
each class is subdivided into four sections, a member 
being elected definitely into only one of these. There 
are three groups of members : Resident Fellows, residing 
in the Commonwealth, and limited to two hundred; 
Associate Fellows, other Americans, including Cana- 



American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 45 

dians, limited to one hundred; and Foreign Honorary 
Members, limited to seventy-five. The roll is kept very 
nearly full, the last published containing 356 names. 

The Hall of the Academy is at present in the Athe- 
naeum Building on Beacon street, but it will shortly be 
removed to new quarters with the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society on Boylston street. The Hall contains 
a few interesting portraits, but little else except the 
library, consisting of about 26,000 volumes. It is richest 
in the departments of physics, chemistry, technology, 
and mathematics, and in the publications of learned 
bodies with which it stands in friendly relations. 
Meetings are held here once a month excepting in the 
summer, and the papers then presented form latterly a 
yearly volume of Proceedings. 

The Academy has no large endowment of its own, 
but it has long been the administrator of a responsible 
trust, founded by Count Rumford, for the advancement 
of the knowledge of light and heat and of their practical 
applications. By means of this a part of the expenses of 
its publications are defrayed, and it confers the Rum- 
ford medals as a premium to the author of any impor- 
tant discovery or useful improvement in light or in heat 
(made in America), preference being given to those 
which tend most to promote the good of mankind. 
Through this fund also, and through the recently 
founded C. W. Warren fund, considerable grants are 
yearly made in aid of physical and chemical research. 

The publications of the Academy consist of 33 volumes 
of Proceedings in 8vo, 16 volumes of Memoirs in 4to, and 
the Life and Works of Count Rumford in 5 volumes, 8vo. 

Mr. Alexander Agassiz is President of the Academy, 
and Messrs. Samuel H. Scudder and William Watson, 
Secretaries. 



BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL 
HISTORY. 



Berkeley, Boylston, and Newbury streets. Open from 9 A.M. to 1 
P.M. and from 2 P.M. to 5 P.M. 



THIS society was preceded by a sliort-lived associa- 
tion known by the name of the Linnaean Society, 
which after a checkered career finally dissolved in 1823. 
In a few years the desire for a natural history society 
revived, and the present organization was initiated in 
1830, and moved into its present building in 1864, on 
land given by the State. From its foundation the 
society assumed a more popular character in distinction 
from its older sister in Boston, the American Academy, 
which has a restricted membership. The object of the 
society is the promotion of all the natural history 
sciences, which in practice comprise anthropology, zool- 
ogy, botany, palaeontology, geology, and mineralogy. 
It maintains a general museum, which includes a 
large amount of valuable material, in part unique, and 
a library, which is very rich in long series of the pub- 
lications of learned societies of all countries, and in 
scientific journals, being in both fields by far the best 
library of natural history in New England. The 
society has also issued a valuable series of publica- 
tions, as follows : 

Proceedings, 8vo, volumes 1-28. 

Journal, 8vo, volumes 1-7. 

Occasional Papers, 8vo, volumes 1-4, parts 1 and 2. 



Boston Society of Natural History. 47 



Memoirs, 4to, volumes 1-5 ; and a memorial volume 
in 1880. 

Museum Guides, 8vo, volumes 2-3. 

At present the society aims to distribute, in parts as 
printed, at least one volume of Proceedings annually, 
and part of a volume of Memoirs. Both series are 
illustrated with numerous plates. The society carries 
out extensive educational functions, partly by offering 
facilities and laboratory opportunities to Boston Univer- 
sity, partly in cooperation with the Lowell Institute by 
lectures and laboratory courses to the teachers of the 
schools of Boston and of the neighboring towns. 

The society has long held a high position in the 
community, and has done much for the encouragement 
of young students, so that a very large proportion of 
the naturalists of this section of the country are much 
indebted to opportunities afforded by the society. 

The first president of the society was Thomas Nut- 
tall, the well-known ornithologist and botanist. The 
society depended at its start chiefly upon voluntary 
efforts, and among those who thus served the interests 
of science we find many who distinguished themselves 
as naturalists in the early part of this century. Among 
the active early supporters of the society we may 
enumerate : B. D. Greene, Amos Binney, C. T. Jack- 
son, A. A. Gould, T. W. Harris, Jeffries Wyman, 
G. B. Emerson, Louis Agassiz, Henry Bryant, Henry 
B. Rogers, D. H. Storer, W. I. Burnett, and J. C. 
Warren, and the list might easily be extended. The 
early life of the society was simple, but it was so well 
sustained that its collection of books and of specimens 
soon outgrew the limited accommodations of the society. 
About 1860 the need of a new building became imper- 



48 Principal Scientific Institiitioiis. 

ative. Through the very liberal contributions of Dr. 
William J. Walker the society was enabled to make so 
strong an appeal to the public that the balance of the 
necessary funds for a new building was secured. The 
Legislature of the State, thanks to the energetic pleas 
of Prof. W. B. llogers and Mr. M. D. Eoss, presented to 
the society the land upon which its building now stands. 
This dignified and handsome edifice was erected in 
1863, and has since remained without essential altera- 
tions. The original cost of the building was a little 
over $100,000, and its construction was exceptionally 
thorough and careful. It is, however, at present too 
small for the needs of the society, and it is hoped to 
enlarge it in the near future. It contains, besides the 
library and the museum, a lecture hall and a laboratory. 
The museum of the society was reorganized upon a 
comprehensive plan designed by Prof. Alpheus Hyatt, 
who has been the curator since 1870. This plan em- 
braces a synoptic collection, and the introductory 
portion of this collection is what the visitor first en- 
counters upon entering the building. The synoptic 
collection embraces a general part, to illustrate the 
principal materials, forms, and forces with which the 
naturalist has to deal, and a systematic part. Secondly, 
there is a New England collection which, though not 
absolutely complete, is, in most departments, very 
nearly so. Finally, there is displayed a special col- 
lection of birds in the uppermost ]3art of the museum, 
the greater part of which — the Lafresnaye Collection 
— was the gift of the late Dr. Henry Bryant. Among 
the many specimens in the museum of special interest 
and value, there may be mentioned more particularly 
a large number of type specimens, especially of birds, 



Boston Society of Natural History. 49 

and a smaller number of types of insects and of 
other invertebrata. Allusion must be made to the 
skeleton of the gorilla which was brought to this 
country by the Rev. Mr. Savage and furnished Dr. 
Jeffries Wyman the opportunity to draw up the first 
thorough scientific description of the skeleton of this 
anthropoid. Conspicuous also is the large skeleton 
of a whale suspended from the ceiling of the main 
hall, which has been described in a special memoir 
by Dr. Thomas Dwight. The Pratt Collection of 
shells is well known to all conchologists, and is of 
very great value. It was bequeathed to the society in 
1867 by Miss S. P. Pratt, together with a fund of $10,- 
000 for the maintenance and increase of the collection. 
Also well known to specialists is the Lowell Herbarium, 
presented by John Amory Lowell, the Eser Palseonto- 
logical Collection, presented by John Cummings, and 
the Harris Collection of insects. The most definite 
conception of the plan upon which the society hopes to 
have all its collections arranged can be gathered from 
the examination of the mineralogical and geological 
collections upon the first floor. 

The library contains at present over 37,000 volumes 
and pamphlets. As it is consulted chiefly by students 
and investigators, it is not maintained as a reference 
library merely, but members are allowed to take out 
books for long periods so as better to facilitate thor- 
ough study, especially on the part of those who are pur- 
suing original investigations. The library possesses in 
addition to its books several interesting portraits 
which deserve attention ; among the oils are included 
J. J. Audubon in hunting costume, by Healy ; Louis 
Agassiz, by Mrs. Alexander ; Alexander von Humboldt, 



5© Principal Scientific Institutions. 

by Wight ; and Thomas Nuttall, The library and j>nb- 
lications owe very much to the successful energy of Mr. 
Samuel II. Sendder, folloAved later b}^ Mr. Edward Bur- 
gess. The former was librarian from 1864 to 1870, and 
under his care the library nearly doubled in size in six 
years. Mr. Scudder was subsequently president of the 
society. Mr. Burgess was secretary from 1872 to 1888. 
He had distinguished himself as an entomologist before 
he achieved fame by his genius for yacht building. 

The society now has a permanent fund created prin- 
cipally by the bequests of public-spirited citizens of 
Boston, amounting to some $200,000. 

Meetings are held twice a month, from November 
through IMay, and are often largely attended. The 
average attendance is over eighty. The meetings 
being open to the general public, especial efforts are 
made to have communications presented which shall be 
of general interest, while other meetings are made of 
a more specially scientific character. It is customary 
to allow such communications as are offered for pub- 
lication by the society, but are not read in open meet- 
ing, to be presented by title, to secure their considera- 
tion for publication by the society. 

Dr. W. J. Walker, who, as before mentioned, has been 
the largest single benefactor of the society, established 
two prize funds, one of which is given annually for 
essays on special themes determined by a committee, 
and a larger prize, usually of a thousand dollars, which 
is given not oftener than once in five years, for distin- 
guished original investigations made in this country in 
the domain of the natural history sciences. This prize 
has been awarded five times, as follows : in 1873 to 
Dr. Alexander Agassiz; in 1880 to Prof. Joseph 



Boston Society of Natural History. 5 1 



Leidy; in 1884 to Prof. James Hall; in 1892 to Prof. 
James D. Dana ; and finally, in 1898, to Dr. Samuel 
H. Scudder. 

Dr. Charles Sedgwick Minot is president of the 
society ; Prof. Alpheus Hyatt, the curator ; Mr. 
Samuel Henshaw, the secretary. 



WARREN MUSEUM OF NATURAL 
HISTORY. 



The Museum is at 82 Chestnut street (near Charles street) , and is 
open from 3 to 6 P.M., during the meeting of the American Association. 



THIS museum was incorporated by the Legislature 
February 19, 1858. It contains many valuable 
specimens collected by the late Dr. John C. AVarren. 
The central feature is the skeleton of a mastodon, 
perhaps the finest in the worhl, which was discovered 
near ]S"ewburg, N.Y., in 1845, and purchased by Dr. 
Warren in 1846. There is also a fine skeleton of an 
elephant, and another fine mastodon head, as well 
as many teeth. A fossil skeleton of the Zeuglodon 
cetoides, some sixty feet long, is arranged around the 
lower hall. There are several slabs containing fine fossil 
footprints and various other curiosities. 

According to the will of Dr. Warren his children 
were made a corporation to hold this collection for the 
benefit of the surviving grandchildren. 



MASSACHUSETTS 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The building of the society is at No. 101 Tremont street, Boston, and 
is open to visitors at any time. 



THE Massachusetts Hokticultural Society was 
established in 1829, for the purpose, as stated in 
the Act of Incorporation, " of encouraging and improving 
the science and practice of horticulture, and promoting 
the amelioration of the various species of trees, fruits, 
plants, and vegetables." The means by which it has 
been sought to effect the objects of the society are, first, 
horticultural exhibitions ; second, lectures ; and third, 
the library. 

The exhibitions were established very soon after the 
formation of the society, and since then there has been 
hardly a Saturday when some horticultural product has 
not been shown, besides exhibitions lasting from one 
to four days and evenings. At these exhibitions about 
two hundred thousand dollars has been awarded in 
prizes. 

In 1887 an exliibition of window gardening by chil- 
dren was commenced, which has since developed into 
an exhibition of school gardens and children's herba- 
riums. This movement has excited much interest 
throughout the country, and it is believed has done 
much to train children to a knowledge and love of 



54 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

botany and horticulture, and to cultivate the powers 
of observation in our young people. 

The lectures and discussions before the society were 
begun in 1874, and have been continued through the 
winter of every succeeding year, about twelve lectures 
or discussions having been held each season. They are 
free to all. 

From its formation the society began the publication 
of an annual pamphlet containing an account of its 
doings, and this has been continued, with some vari- 
ations of form, until the present day. From 1846 to 
1852 its Transactions were published in imperial octavo 
with colored plates. Beginning with 1874 the lectures 
and papers read before the society have been published 
in full, with the substance of the discussions. These 
publications now fill thirteen thick octavo volumes. In 
1880 a History of the Society for the first fifty years 
was published. 

The library will probably be of more interest to 
scientific visitors than any other part of the society's 
work. This, like the exhibitions, was begun very soon 
after the formation of the society, and has grown so 
that it is now the best horticultural and botanical 
library in this country, and is excelled by few in au}^ 
part of the world. 

Books on botany and horticulture illustrated with 
plates, colored plates being preferred when obtainable, 
have been specially sought. The library is open every 
day during business hours, and is free to be consulted 
by any one. 

The President of the society is now Gen. Francis 
H. Appleton. 



APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB. 



Club-rooms, Tremont Building 1049-1051. Open to visitors week- 
days from 3 to 5.30 P.M. 



THIS club, founded in 1876, incorporated in 1878, 
and now numbering over 1,000 members, owes its 
existence to a movement of leading scientific men in 
New England to provide for a more complete study of 
the then imperfectly explored White Mountain region, 
together with the fostering of a fondness for the exer- 
cise of mountain climbing. Among its founders were 
Edward C. Pickering, Samuel H. Scudder, T. Sterry 
Hunt, Edward S. Morse, William H. Niles, Charles 
K. Cross, C. H. Hitchcock, and Count Pourtales. 

Although its original field of work was long since 
quite fully explored, new interests have meantime con- 
stantly arisen, so that the society has never lacked 
some kindred object worthy of its effort. Its early 
claims for recognition as a geographical society have of 
late been supported through the part taken by its mem- 
bers in the exploration of the glacial regions of the 
Kocky Mountains of Canada, and in increasing its 
knowledge of this noble field for study and for Alpinism. 
Here at home, besides its interesting monthly meetings 
(at tlie Institute of Teclmology, its birthplace), its 
weekly "outings," and its occasional longer excursions, 
whereby hundreds have been made familiar with the 



56 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

wider aspects of Nature, it has taken an active part in 
important public enterprises. The Massachusetts sys- 
tem of Metropolitan Parks could scarcely have existed 
but for the previous creation of the Trustees of Public 
Reservations, which body was the direct outcome of a 
movement started by the club in 1890. The preservation 
of the forests, especially in the mountain regions of New 
England, has also interested it, and an extension of the 
club's charter in 1894 enables it to hold (exempt from 
taxation when unproductive) all forest lands in this 
Commonwealth that it may acquire by gift or purchase. 
It has already several minor holdings in New Hamp- 
shire and one in Massachusetts. 

At the club-rooms are its library, over 1,000 volumes 
chiefly of Alpine and geographical publications, and its 
collection of maps and photographs. The superb ''■ Sella 
Collection " of nearly 500 views in the Alps and the 
Caucasus is usually absent on exhibition in other cities, 
under a system of loan to responsible societies. By the 
courtesy of the Boston Art Club, arrangements have 
been made for exhibiting the collection at the club 
house, Dartmouth and Newbury streets, during the 
meeting of the American Association. 

The annual income is about $3,000, chiefly from 
admission fees ($5) and annual assessments ($3). The 
principal items of expenditure, apart from room-rent 
and ordinary expenses, are for the building and 
maintenance of paths, shelters, etc., in the White 
Mountains, and for publications. " Appalachia," the 
journal of the club, is an 8vo magazine, richly illus- 
trated, of about 100 pages per number (four numbers to 
the volume), appearing once or twice a year. Eight 
volumes are now complete. 



Appalachian Mountain Club. 57 

The President of the club is Prof. W. H. Niles. The 
Eegister of 1898 (12mo, 60 pages), with full informa- 
tion concerning the club and containing a list of officers 
and members, will be sent on application to R. B. 
Lawrence, Recording Secretary, 745 Tremont Building, 
Boston. 

By invitation of the Local Committee the club will 
undertake the conduct of the various excursions offered 
to members of the American Association. 



MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 



The museum is situated on Copley square, at the cornei- of Dartmouth 
street and St, James avenue. It is open every week-day from 9 A.M. 
to 5 P.M., excepting on Monday, when it is closed until noon. On 
Sundays it is open from 1 to 5 P.M. Admission every day excepting 
Saturday and Sunday, 25 cents ; on Saturday and Sunday free. By the 
courtesy of the Trustees, admission will be free during the meeting 
to members of the American Association weaving badges. 



THE first suggestion of a public establishment in 
Boston to be devoted wholly to the line arts 
was the result of a wish to make more accessible to the 
public several collections of works of art already exist- 
ing in the city ; notably the paintings and sculpture 
belonging to the Boston Athenseum, the collections of 
engravings belonging to Harvard College, and the casts 
of architectural ornament belonging to the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology. In March, 1870, the 
Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts were incorporated 
by an act which stated the purposes of the corporation 
to be the " preservation and exhibition of works of art, 
making, maintaining, and exhibiting collections of such 
works, and affording instruction in the Fine Arts." 

The land now in part occupied by the museum build- 
ing was the gift of the city ; but apart from this gift 
the museum has been wholly dependent upon private 
liberality for its creation and maintenance. Subscrip- 
tions in which all classes in the city have joined have 
provided the funds successively for the first wing on 



Museum of Fine Arfs. 59 

St. James avenue (opened July 3, 1876), the completion 
of the St. James avenue front (1879), and its enlarge- 
ment (1890) by two wings and a connecting corridor, 
making a liollow square about a central court. 

The museum is managed by a board of thirty Trus- 
tees, of whom three are appointed by Harvard College, 
three by the Boston Athenaeum, and three by the Insti- 
tute of Technology ; there are five ex-officio members, of 
whom three, including the Mayor, represent the city of 
Boston ; the remainder of the board are those first named 
in the act of incorporation and those chosen by the 
board to fill vacancies in its number. An Executive 
Committee has the care of the building, and the Com- 
mittee on the Museum has the direction of the collec- 
tions. The President of the Board of Trustees is Mr. 
William Endicott, Jr. The museum has been from the 
beginning under the immediate charge of Gen. Charles 
G. Loring, the present director. Since the first opening 
of the museum the use of rooms in the basement and 
attic of the building has been granted by the trustees 
for a School of Drawing and Painting, which has given 
instruction of the highest quality, and is attended annu- 
ally by about 200 pupils. 

On the first floor of the building the outer rooms are 
occupied by a large collection of casts of sculpture, 
Avhile three rooms on the court contain collections of 
Egyptian and of classical antiquities. The collection of 
casts is arranged in the main chronologically, beginning 
with Egyptian and Assyrian sculpture in the room on 
the right of the entrance, and running around the build- 
ing through the large collection of classical sculpture 
and that of the Italian, Ereuch, and German Renais- 
sance, to modern American sculpture in the room on 



6o Principal Scientific Institutions. 

the left of the entrance. The collection of original 
objects from Egypt is one of great interest, while that 
of Greek vases, sculpture, and other objects affords a 
very uncommon opportunity for acquaintance with the 
original work of classical artists. 

On the second floor, the picture galleries and the 
rooms devoted to exhibitions of prints occupy the 
whole east wing of the building, to the right on reach- 
ing the head of the stairs. The first three rooms con- 
tain pictures of older date, tlie first largely Italian, the 
second American (Allston room), the third Dutch. 
The fourth and fifth picture galleries contain the work 
of contemporary artists. In the Allston room are 
found several portraits of celebrated Americans, fore- 
most among them the " Athenaeum " heads of Washing- 
ton and Mrs. Washington, by Stuart. To the left of 
the stairway hall is the gallery of textiles ; beyond, 
those of pottery and porcelain, wood carving, metal 
work, and coins and jewelry. A large room beyond 
and the whole of the corridor are devoted to the collec- 
tion of objects of Japanese art, which in every depart- 
ment is the largest and richest in the world. In the 
corridor, in cases between the windows, is the Morse 
collection of Japanese pottery, a more complete repre- 
sentation of the fictile art of Japan than all other 
existing collections combined. 

The museum publishes the following catalogues of 
its regular exhibitions : 

Casts of Classical Sculpture. (Revised edition, 

1896.) f 50 

Greek Vases. (1893.) 1 00 

Paintings and Other Objects on the Second Floor. 

(1898.) 25 



Museum of Fine Arts. 6i 



T'rom time to time catalogues of special exhibitions 
are published, of which the latest is that of the exhibi- 
tion of book plates arranged during the spring of 1898 
by the Club of Odd Volumes of this city. 



BLUE HILL METEOROLOGICAL 
OBSERVATORY. 



The observatory is situated upon the summit of Great Bhie Hill, about 
eleven miles south-south-west of Boston State House. It is most easily 
reached from Boston by trains from the Park Square station of the New 
York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad, which leave at eighteen minutes 
past each hour and arrive at Readville in twenty- four minutes. From 
Rcadville a carriage may be taken to the base of Great Blue Hill (one 
and one-half miles), whence a foot-path leads in twenty minutes to the top 
of the hill. Although the hill is but GSf) feet above sea-level, it is the 
highest land on the Atlantic coast between Maine and Florida, and 
commands a splendid vicAV, extending seaward to Cape Ann (forty 
miles) and inland to Grand Monadnock Mountain (sixty-eight miles 
distant) . Persons interested in meteorological work are always welcome 
at the observatory. 



THE observatory was established as a private 
meteorological station in 1885 by A. Lawrence 
Kotch, of Boston, and it has since been supported and 
directed by him. With the exception of the municipal 
meteorological station in New York, the Blue Hill Ob- 
servatory was the first in this country to be equipped 
with instruDients which recorded graphically and con- 
tinuously all the meteorological elements (excepting 
the forms and motions of clouds) usually observed at 
a station of the first order, and commencing with 1886 
hourly values were printed. Two secondary stations 
with self-recording instruments are maintained on the 
Readville road, at altitudes of 50 feet and 200 feet, 
respectively, above the sea. Local weather predictions 
made daily at the observatory were published in the 



Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. 63 



Boston newspapers until the Weather Bureau com- 
menced similar forecasts in Boston, and they are still 
signalled by flags from the observatory to the neighbor- 
ing towns. The work of the observatory, however, is 
mainly research, which is widely known to meteorolo- 
gists through publication ; clouds especially have been 
studied. The first series of measurements in America 
of the height and velocity of clouds, by trigonometrical 
and other methods, was made here in 1890-91, and 
the measurements were repeated during 1896-97 as a 
part of an international system. On Blue Hill, in 1894, 
the first meteorological instrument recording graphi- 
cally and continuously, was lifted by kites, and the 
possibility of obtaining data simultaneously in the free 
air by means of kites and at the ground was thereby 
demonstrated. This method of exploring the free air 
has been perfected by the aid of a grant from the 
Hodgkins Fund of the Smithsonian Institution, and 
very valuable results have been obtained, automatic 
records of atmospheric pressure, air temperature, rela- 
tive humidity, and wind velocity having been brought 
down from an altitude of ten thousand feet. 

The Blue Hills were taken by the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts for a public reservation and became a 
portion of the Metropolitan Park System (see page 81) 
in 1893, but the observatory was allowed to remain. In 
1896 a portion of the summit of Great Blue Hill was 
leased by the Commonwealth for ninety-nine years to 
Harvard College, and it is hoped that the observations 
will be maintained under invariable conditions of expos- 
ure. The annual expense of maintenance, exclusive 
of publication, is about $4,000, which is borne by the 
director, Mr. Botch. The other members of the staff 



64 Principal Sciefilific Instiiutions. 

are H. Helm Clayton, meteorologist ; S. P. Fergusson, 
mechanician ; and A. E. Sweetland, observer. 

The observations for 1885 and 1886, as well as an 
account of the observatory, were privately printed ; since 
1887 the observations and discussions have been pub- 
lished, annually or oftener, in the "Annals of the 
Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College," at 
the joint expense of the university and Mr. Rotch. 
The following volumes of the " Annals " contain the 
Blue Hill work : Vol. XX. ; Vol. XXX. (Part III., 
Measurements of Cloud Heights and Velocities; Part 
IV., Discussion of Cloud Observations) ; Vol. XL. ; Vol. 
XLII. (Part I., Appendix B, Exploration of the Air by 
Means of Kites). During the present year three " Bul- 
letins " have been issued by the observatory, giving 
prompt information of general interest. 



STATE LIBRARY OF MASSACHU- 
SETTS. 



The library occupies the northern end of the third floor of the State 
House Extension, and is easily reached by the elevators near any of the 
entrances to the building. It is open every week-day from 9 A.M. until 
5 P.M., except Saturdays, on which day it closes at 2 P.M. Visitors are 
always welcome, and are cordially invited to make themselves known to 
the Librarian. 



THE State Library was established in 1826, is 
supported by State appropriatioiij and has become 
one of the foremost State libraries in the country. It 
is solely a reference library, containing over 100,000 
volumes, its primary function being to furnish the 
legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the 
Commonwealth with such information as they may 
require. Its collection of the statute law of all the 
American States, of Great Britain and all its depend- 
encies, and of all the other countries of the civilized 
world is believed to be one of the best in existence. 
The official publications of the general government and 
of all the States, together with an extensive collection 
of the best works upon the legal, political, educational, 
social, and economic sciences, the biography of public 
men, the history, description, and resources of the dif- 
ferent countries of the world, and the best reference 
books carefully kept up to date, are among the most 
notable features of the collection. Visitors may be 
interested in the modern features of the construction 



66 Principal Scieniific Institutions. 

of the steel stack, with glass floors, which affords 
opportunity for a model system of electric lighting, 
and in a novel electric book-lift. The original manu- 
script of Governor Bradford's history of the early 
years of the Plymouth Colony, which was returned 
to Massachusetts by the English Government at the 
request of Senator Hoar and with the cooperation of 
Ambassador Bayard, — one of the most interesting 
manuscripts in the world, — may here be seen. 
jNIr. C. B. Tillinghast is the Librarian. 



BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



The central library building- is located on Copley square. The 
addresses of the 27 branch libraries and Stations may be found in the 
Monthly Bulletin, to be had free on application, and in various other 
publications of the library. The central library is open for the read- 
ing and circulation of books from 9 A.M. to 10 P.M on week-days, 
from 2 to 10 P.M. on Sundays and holidays, and closes in summer at 

9 P.M. 

A detailed description of the architecture of the building will be found 
in the Illustrated Handbook issued by Messrs. Curtis & Cameron, 
Copley square, and for sale at fifteen cents in the entrance hall. 



T 



iHE Public Library of the city of Boston is a de- 
partment of the city government maintained by 
annual appropriations. It forms therefore a part of the 
public educational system of the city. It is adminis- 
tered by a board of five trustees, who serve without 
pay, and of whom one is appointed annually by the 
Mayor for a term of five years. The board is, how- 
ever, separately incorporated and empowered to take 
and hold property. The original plan of the library 
was a sloAV growth in the minds of prominent men 
of the city during the years from 1841 onward. In 
1848 an enabling act was passed by the State Legis- 
lature, and on May 24, 1852, the date given as the 
founding of the library, the first board of trustees 
was organized with Edward Everett as president. 

The 'first annual report of the trustees defined not 
only the policy of this library, but of free public libra- 
ries generally since that date. An immediate result of 



68 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

this report was the gift of money and books to the 
amount of $100,000 from Joshua Bates, a citizen of 
Boston then resident in London. Certain minor gifts 
both of books and money had preceded this. It was 
followed by many important gifts and bequests. To- 
day a large number of the most valuable books in the 
library belong in collections that have come in this 
way; and the trust funds (the interest of which, de- 
voted to the purchase of books, amounted last year to 
$11,000) aggregate $265,000. The main income of the 
library, however, is the annual city appropriation, 
which, supplemented from various municipal sources, 
amounted in 1897 to $251,000. 

The following are the principal departments of the 
library system : Besides the central library with 530,000 
volumes there are 10 branch libraries with independent 
collections of books aggregating 170,000 volumes ; and 17 
stations, some of which contain deposits of books, peri- 
odicals, etc., from the central library for reading and ref- 
erence, while others are stations for the delivery of 
books. To all of these 27 outlying districts the library 
wagons and local expresses make daily trips for the 
exchange of books and cards with the central library. 
The delivery or deposit of books is also undertaken in 
5 schools, 3 reformatory institutions, and 22 fire-com- 
pany houses, making in all 57 outlying stations for the 
reading and circulation of books. On Feb. 1, 1898, 
there were 65,000 card holders entitled to draw books 
for home use. This is an increase of eighty-six per 
cent, in the number of card holders within the last two 
years. During the same time the circulation of books 
for use at home has increased forty-one per cent. 

In the central library the main Eeference and Eead- 



Boston Public Library. 69 



ing Room, known as Bates Hall, contains about 8,000 
volumes on open shelves.' These are for free consulta- 
tion by any visitor without the intervention of an attend- 
ant. The Children's Heading Room contains some 
7,000 volumes for reading and issue. The Patent, Period- 
ical, and Newspaper Reading Rooms are for reference 
and reading only, although certain current magazines 
circulate from the Issue Department. The number and 
range of the periodicals and newspapers supplied will 
be found in the Annual Report for 1898. 

In the Fine Arts Department drawing tables and 
cet'tain other conveniences for students and copyists 
are furnished. From the reference collection of photo- 
graphs supplementary to the books of this department, 
as well as through the generosity of citizens, exhibi- 
tions of material of interest on special occasions are 
hung from time to time in the Fine Arts Room, where 
also illustrated free lectures are given. In this depart- 
ment, classes pursuing systematic study in history, the 
fine arts, etc., and travel clubs, are encouraged to apply 
for special assistance in the way of illustrated books, 
portfolios, and photographs. The library contains also 
Binding and Printing Departments, the former of which 
does all the book-binding, mounting of maps, etc., of the 
library, with the exception of the cheapest grade of 
binding. The Printing Department contains a small 
but complete modern plant, including two Mergenthaler 
'' linotype " machines, fonts of hand type, a Hoe stop 
cylinder press, two job presses, etc. 

The central library building stands on land a large 
part of which was the gift in 1888 of the Common- 
wealth. It is in the Italian Renaissance style, quad- 
rangular, surrounding a court, and cost at the time of 



70 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

opening in Marcli, 1895, including all decorations con- 
tracted for, some $2,400,000. Certain alterations are 
now under way, principally in the administrative por- 
tions of the building, which are intended greatly to 
increase the efficiency of the library in the handling 
and issue of books, and to improve the heating and ven- 
tilating systems. 

Entering through the main entrance on Dartmouth 
street, the only public room on the ground floor is the 
Periodical Reading Room. Tliis is off the right-hand 
corridor. To right and left, the corridors lead to the 
granite arcade surrounding the court and fountain. 
The main staircase breaks at the landing ; to the right, 
it leads to the Children's Room, Patent and Newspaper 
Reading Rooms ; to the left, to the Issue Department 
and Librarian's Room. Bates Hall, the entrance to 
which is beneath the main decoration by M. de Cha- 
vannes at the head of the staircase, extends across the 
entire front of the building. Descriptions of the main 
decoration and eight panels by M. de Chavannes will be 
found on cards in the balustrade. 

The decorations by Mr. E. A. Abbey in the Issue Room, 
called the "Quest of the Holy Grail," are described 
on cards to be found at the Issue Desk. When com- 
pleted these decorations will extend around the room. 
At the southern end of Bates Hall next the Issue Room 
is the public card catalogue, the main index to the 
books of the library. It contains nearly a million cards 
arranged as a dictionary, with authors and subjects in 
one alphabet, and a great many cross-references. In 
Bates Hall are two stations from which attendants 
direct inquirers and suppl}^ information ; and through- 
out the library, attendants in particular departments 



Bostofi Public Library. 71 

are expected to supply information concerning the mate- 
rial which they have in charge. 

The stacks of the library containing the main collec- 
tion are on six floors in the southern wing back of the 
Issue Room. They are open to the public on request 
for inspection, but not for the purpose of study. From 
them, however, readers in Bates Hall may receive their 
books in from five to eight minutes. The Trustees' 
Eoom, a rich room furnished in the empire style, is on 
the mezzanine floor in the southern wing back of the 
Issue Room. The Newspaper Reading Room, containing 
some 320 news^Dapers from all the principal cities of 
the world, is reached through the Children's Room and 
Patent Room. 

The third or special libraries floor contains the 
Barton-Shakespeare Library, the best collection of 
Shakespeariana outside of England, the Ticknor 
Spanish and Portuguese Library, the Prince and Lewis 
Libraries of Americana, the Library of John Adams, the 
Allen A. Brown Library of Music, the Twentieth Regi- 
ment Memorial Library, the Codman collection of books 
relating to landscape architecture, the Galatea collec- 
tion of books relating to the history of woman, and 
certain other of the special collections of the library. 
The decoration by Mr. John S. Sargent is in the main 
corridor at the head of the staircase. The subject is a 
religious one, the part already in place representing the 
struggle of Judaism with polytheism. The decoration 
when completed will occupy the entire corridor. De- 
scriptive cards will be found on the balustrade. In the 
Fine Arts Room, from time to time, exhibitions of 
books, bindings, photographs, etc., are held. The 
various special libraries in the north, west, and south 
wings will be found by inquiry of the attendant. 



72 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

A full list of publications of the library may be 
found on the back of the current issues of the Monthly 
Bulletin. Among those for free distribution are the 
following : 

Monthly Bulletin of new books added. This publi- 
cation will be sent by mail for twenty-five cents a year. 

Annual Reports. The report for this year (1897-8) 
contains photographs of the central library building 
and several branch library buildings, a map of the 
library system, and floor plans of the central library 
building. 

Publication of the Quarterly Bulletins was discon- 
tinued in 1896. A list of the special bibliograxDhical 
material contained in them, e.g., fac-similes, lists of 
books on special subjects, etc., will be found on the 
back of current issues of the Monthly Bulletin. 

In the Department of Science the library recognizes 
the proximity of Harvard University, the Institute of 
Technology, the Natural History Society, and other 
institutions, and its purpose is not to duplicate, unnec- 
essarily, items in these other collections, in the case of 
very costly, highly specialized material. It has recently 
published a union list of the scientific and other serials 
currently taken in 36 libraries of Boston and vicinity, 
the material for the list being furnished in cooperation ; 
and it is one of five engaged in the cooperative indexing 
of some 160 important scientific serials. Its share of 
this work is in the hands of Mr. John Murdoch, well 
known as an anthropologist, and for five years librarian 
of the Smithsonian Institution. The library has had 
the benefit of the expert assistance of Mr. Murdoch 
during the past year and a half. 

A recent gift to the library of the library of the 



Boston Ptiblic Library. 73 

American Statistical Association has formed the occa- 
sion for the enlargement of a special department of 
work in connection with documentary, statistical, and 
economic material, to be organized under the direction 
of Mr. Worthington C. Pord, late chief of the Bureau 
of Statistics at Washington. 

The library is a free public library, no charge being 
made for the use of the material in the various depart- 
ments, either by residents of the city who have the right 
to take books from the library, or by any visitor to the 
city for use in the building. 

Hon. Frederick 0. Prince is the Chairman of the 
Board of Trustees. Mr. Herbert Putnam is the Libra- 
rian. 



BOSTON ATHENAEUM. 



No. 10^ Beacon street, near the State House. 



THE Boston Athp^n^um had its origin in the 
" Monthly Anthology," a magazine first published 
in 1803. The persons interested in this periodical formed 
the Anthology Club, and collected a library which was 
incorporated in 1807 as the Boston Athenaeum. Quarters 
were found first in Congress street, then in Pearl street 
(1821), and later in the present building at 10^ Beacon 
street (1849). For many years the Athenaeum had a 
valuable art gallery, but the best paintings have been 
transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts. 

The Athenaeum is managed by trustees elected by 
its 1,049 shareholders, known as "proprietors." The 
income is derived from invested funds, and from an 
annual assessment upon each share in use. It possesses 
about 180,000 volumes, many of them rare; a large 
collection of Braun photographs and art works ; files 
of early newspapers ; the Bemis collection of works on 
international law, including State papers, etc., for the 
increase of which there is a substantial fund ; one of 
the very best sets of United States documents in the 
country; and a large part of George Washington's 
private library, with many works relating to the first 
President. The Stuart portrait of Washington now at 
the Art Museum is owned by the Athenaeum. 



Boston AthencBum. 75 



Some famous men of New England have been pro- 
prietors of the Athenaeum, including John Hancock, 
Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Holmes, Parkman, 
and Prescott, and many famous books have been written 
beneath its roof. William F. Poole, who originated 
Poole's Index was at one time its librarian. A history 
of the first half century of the AtlienspAim was written 
by Hon. Josiah Quincy. 

Mr. Charles Knowles Bolton is the Librarian. 



At a meeting of the Standing and Library Commit- 
tees, June 13, 1898, it was 

" Voted, That the privileges granted to readers be 
given to members of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, and to guests of the Associa- 
tion, during the fiftieth anniversary meeting to be held 
at Boston, Aug. 22 to 27, 1898." 



BOSTON MEDICAL LIBRARY. 



No. 19 Boylstoii place. 



TTIHIS institution was organized in 1875 and incor- 
-L porated in 1877, with the object of maintaining a 
library of medical and scientific books, journals, and 
pamphlets for ready reference ; of rendering current 
medical literature promptly accessible to physicians 
and students ; of establishing a place of resort for the 
medical profession of Boston and vicinity, Avherein shall 
be preserved the memorials, portraits, autographs, etc., 
of New England medical worthies. 

The Association owns and occupies the house 'No. 19 
Boylston place, which was formerly the residence of 
Dr. Samuel G. Howe ; it has added a hall capable of 
seating two hundred persons, in which all the medical 
societies of the city hold their meetings ; it has a 
library of nearly thirty thousand volumes, of which 
two-thirds are periodicals, including complete files of 
all the important journals, transactions of societies, etc., 
in English, French, German, and other languages ; it 
has thirty thousand pamphlets ; it receives regularly 
five hundred American and foreign medical journals ; 
it has a collection of portraits of physicians and many 
thousand autographs. 

The Association is supported by the annual dues 
($5) of its three hundred and fifty members, and by 



Boston Medical Library. 77 

contributions of medical societies, etc. It expects to 
extend its usefulness in the near future by erecting a 
new fireproof building upon a lot of ten thousand 
square feet at the corner of St. Botolph and Garrison 
streets, which it purchased five years ago. 

In 1879 this institution devised, established, and has 
since conducted a Directory for Nurses, v,diich has been 
copied in Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, and 
many other cities. There ?.re recorded the names and 
addresses of all the six or seven hundred nurses in the 
city, their present and future engagements, prices, and 
all other items of information that the employing pub- 
lic should know. For a small fee a nurse is supplied 
to any part of the country. 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was President of the 
Boston Medical Library during the first thirteen years 
of its existence, and at his death bequeathed to it his 
valuable anatomical library. 

The present President is Dr. David W. Cheever. 



PARK SYSTEMS- 



THERE are about 14,000 acres of land devoted to 
park purposes ill Boston and its neighboring cities 
and towns. They include great areas of wooded wild 
lands, reservations of river-bank and sea-shore, and a 
number of most highly developed parks, playgrounds, 
and roads. They may be classified as local park sys- 
tems, owned and cared for by the several municipalities 
within which they lie, and a Metropolitan Park System, 
owned and cared for by the State, acting in behalf of all 
these municipalities united for the purpose into a sort 
of Greater Boston, under the name of the Metropolitan 
Parks District. In acreage London and Paris surpass 
this Greater Boston, but in the variety and general 
character of its park lands no city is richer. 

The local parks include commons, highly developed 
parks, playgrounds, and occasional small areas of 
woodland, beach, or hilltop which have been resorted to 
for generations, and for that reason have at last been 
taken into public ownership. At present, however, the 
tendency of the several municipalities is to confine 
their acquirements to the lands which are especially 
adaptable to use as local playgrounds, and to leave the 
desirable larger areas to be secured as portions of the 
Metropolitan Park System. This latter system was 
begun in 1893 by legislation which united Boston and 36 
neighboring municipalities — that is, the suburbs for 12 
miles about — into a Metropolitan Parks District, under 



Park Systems. 79 



a Metropolitan Park Commission with ample power to 
acquire and make available open spaces for exercise 
and recreation throughout the district. This commis- 
sion acts with regard to the district as a unit, and con- 
fines its acquirements in general to those notable areas 
which could not be acquired by a single municipality, 
because of their size or because only partially within its 
jurisdiction. 

Certain of the local parks outside of Boston possess 
more than local interest. Such, for example, are Pros- 
pect Hill in Waltham (Fitchburg R.K,.), from which a 
magnificent view may be had, and the Lynn Woods of 
2,000 acres in Lynn (Eastern Division of B. & M. R.R.). 
The Lynn Woods is a most interesting and diversified 
reservation. From its hilltops the view seems that of a 
forest far from habitation. It has several miles of road 
which wind through wild scenery of woods, hills, and 
ponds. Close by its outer slopes lies the busy city of 
Lynn, with a population of over 62,000. Lynn and 
Swampscott have public beaches. Newton and AVeston 
(Boston & Albany R.R.) have extensive holdings of 
wooded lands along the banks of Charles River. 

The most notable of elaborately designed parks and 
playgrounds are those in Boston, Brookline, and Cam- 
bridge. Boston Common, 48 acres, is the largest and 
oldest ; next, the Public Gardens, 24 acres, and Com- 
monwealth avenue, were built upon filled marshes. 
They connect with the Fens, which were created by 
Frederick Law Olmsted out of an unsightly marsh 
at the mouth of Muddy River. The Riverway follows 
the valley of that stream, one bank being in Boston 
while the opposite is in Brookline. Similar park de- 
velopment has been continued through Leyerett Park 



8o Principal Scientific Institutions. 

to Jamaica Pond^ on the shore of which the historian 
Parkman lived ; thence to the Arnold Arboretum, used 
for the arboricultural studies of Harvard University, 
with specimens of nearly all the trees aud shrubs hardy 
about Boston, and a growth of remarkably fine old 
hemlocks ; thence to Franklin Park, of 600 acres, — 
Boston's largest and most highly developed park. 
These are to be connected with the extensive Marine 
Park at City Point, South Boston, which has a great 
bath-house, with a pier and a bridge connecting with Fort 
Independence in the harbor. One may drive from town 
overt his entire system, or take electric cars on Washing- 
ton street for Franklin Park or for Marine Park. In 
addition to this there are bath-houses at North End 
Beach on Commercial street, close by the historic 
ground of Copp's Hill ; and playgrounds at Wood 
Island Park, East Boston, and at Charlestown, and 
various other sections of the city. The most accessible 
is Charlesbank, on the Charles Eiver between the bridges 
to Cambridge, which contains open-air gymasia for men 
and boys and for women and girls. In Cambridge 
practically all the shore of the Charles river has been 
acquired, and is gradually being turned into an esplanade 
and river park. Playgrounds have also been laid out 
and carefully developed at Cambridge Field and several 
other places about the city. Cambridge Common, close 
by Harvard College and Christ Church, was the ground 
where troops camped in the Revolution, and under the 
elm close by on the west Washington took command of 
the army. 

The Metropolitan Park System comprises a series of 
notable reservations of wooded wild lands, of sea-shore 
and river-bank, and of connecting parkways. Of the 



Park Syst€7ns. 



wooded wild lands the Blue Hills is largest, and may 
be seen as the sky line to the south seven miles long 
from Quincy, by the seacoast, on the east to the Great 
Blue Hill, 635 feet high, on the west. Within this 
reservation are at least 20 other hills of somewhat 
lesser height. It is ten miles from the State House, 
and contains over 4,200 acres. It is most conveniently 
reached by carriage or on foot from Readville, on the 
Providence Division of the New York, New Haven, 
& Hartford B.R. The Middlesex Fells of 3,200 acres is 
nearer and more diversified. Its southernmost point is 
Pine Hill (252 feet high), in Medford, within five 
miles of the State House. It contains over 600 acres 
of water in ponds, most of which are used in connec- 
tion with the water supply of the district. It has an 
abundance of good roads, and from its higher hills, 
and especially from Bear Hill (375 feet high), a grand 
view of the sea and of the country, even to the hills of 
southern New Hampshire, may be had. Good examples 
of the roads or parkways of the Metropolitan System 
thus far built may be seen near by in the Mj^stic Val- 
ley Driveway, along Mystic Lake, and in Fells way, 
running from the reservation to a point within three 
miles of the State House. This reservation may be 
reached most conveniently by carriage or 15 minutes' 
walk from Medford (branch of Boston & Maine E,.R.), 
or West Medford or Winchester (southern division of 
Boston & Maine E.R.), or from Maiden or Melrose 
(western division of Boston & Maine R.R.). Of the 
smaller woods reservations Beaver Brook Oaks at 
Waverly (Fitchburg R.R.) contains the most notable 
oak-trees in this part of the country. The largest 
has a spread of limbs of 48 feet, and girth of trunk 



82 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

of 18 feet at four feet above base. Stony Brook is 
a pretty tract of 460 acres of woodland, forming part 
of a parkway to connect the Boston Park System with 
the Great Bkie Hill. The banks of the Charles River 
not previously controlled for public or quasi-public 
uses have been acquired as a metropolitan reservation 
as far as Newton Upper Falls, at which point Hem- 
lock Gorge is a most notable bit of scenery, made up 
of fine hemlocks, a great bridge of the Boston Water 
System, and the river rushing over a dam in a rocky 
gorge. The view in general may best be seen by launch, 
boat, or canoe, which may be procured at Waltham 
(Fitchburg E.E..) or Eiverside (Albany R.R.). Revere 
Beach is the most notable public beach in the world. 
Two years ago there was a railway on its crest and 
houses crowded to the water's edge. To-day it stands 
out in its natural form, free of all buildings except 
those back of a perfect road following the beautiful 
curve of the beach. Outlooks and shelters are pro- 
vided, and a bath-house of 1,000 rooms, a model of 
beauty in design and arrangement. This beach is five 
miles from Boston, and is reached by the Revere Beach 
& Lynn R.R. (Atlantic avenue, foot of Franklin street), 
or by electric cars from Scollay square. 



METROPOLITAN WATER WORKS. 



To visit the various places of interest connected with the works re- 
quires more than one day, unless an early start is made. South Framing- 
ham, on the Boston & Albany Railroad, is the focal point for a visit to 
the storage reservoirs. It is reached in thirty-five minutes from Boston. 
A morning express train now leaves Boston at 8.30. The 10.00 A.M. 
train can be taken to Southborough or Fay ville, and a carriage engaged 
to meet the visitor at either of these stations. From South Framingham 
it is an hour's drive by way of Framingham reservoirs No. 2, Xo. 1, and 
No. 3 to Sudbury dam in Fayville, and thence it is an hour's drive b}^ 
way of Fayville across the Boston & Albany Bailroad to Hopkinton 
reservoir and Ashland reservoir. A visit can be made to both and return 
made to Boston by afternoon train from Ashland or from South Framing- 
ham. 

Chestnut Hill reservoir can be reached by electric cars marked 
" Reservoir," running through Bo,ylston street to Beacon street. 

Echo bridge, at Newton Upper Falls, on the Sudbury aqueduct, can 
be reached by the Boston & Albany Railroad, or by *' Newton Boule- 
vard " electric cars, either from Boston or from the Chestnut Hill reservoir. 



THE Metropolitan Water District comprises the 
following cities and towns : Boston, Chelsea, 
Everettj Maiden, Medford, Newton, Somerville, Quincy, 
Belmont, Hyde Park, Melrose, Revere, Stoneham, 
Watertown, and Winthrop, with a present population 
estimated at 760,000. All of the above are now supplied 
by the INIetropolitan Water Board, excepting Newton, 
Belmont, Hyde Park, Watertown, Stoneham, and 
Quincy. 

The plan of the metropolitan works embraces the 
taking at a point in the town of Clinton of the waters 



84 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

of the south branch of the Nashua Eiver, which drains 
a very large and thinly settled watershed in the northern 
central part of the State. These waters have already 
been combined with the supply already obtained by the 
city of Boston from the Sudbury and Cochituate systems. 

At the point of diversion on the Nashua Eiver a 
masonry dam is to be built to create a great reservoir 
to be known as the Wachusett reservoir. The dam has 
not yet been begun. A temporary dam has, however, 
been built across the river a short distance above the 
site of the permanent dam, turning the water into an 
aqueduct which has been built from Clinton to South- 
borough. The water now passes through this aqueduct 
to Sudbury reservoir in Southborough, and thence 
through existing reservoirs and works to Chestnut Hill 
reservoir in Boston. From Chestnut Hill reservoir the 
larger portion of the water now flows by gravity to the 
lower portions of the city of Boston. The remainder is 
pumped to supply the higher portions of Boston and 
the other cities and towns in the metropolitan district. 

When the works are completed, all of the water will 
be pumped at Chestnut Hill reservoir for the purpose of 
increasing the water pressure in the lower parts of 
Boston. In order to distribute the water from Chestnut 
Hill reservoir to the several cities and towns, large main 
pipes have been laid. The low-service pipes extend 
northward to Spot Pond, which will be used as the main 
distributing reservoir for the low-service system. The 
existing pumping-station at Chestnut Hill reservoir, 
with an additional pump, now building, will provide 
water for the higher lands in the southerly part of the 
metropolitan water district, and the new pumping-station 
at Spot Pond will supply the higher lands in the north- 



Metropolitan Water Works. 85 



erly part of the district. The metropolitan works supply 
water to the main pipes or reservoirs of the cities and 
towns in the Metropolitan Water District, but have 
nothing to do with the local distribution of water. 

STATISTICS. 

Total areas of water-sheds . 212.3 sq. miles. 

Daily capacity of sources in 
driest year, including Sud- 
bury and Wachusett reser- 
voirs 173,000,000 gallons. 

Proposed Wachusett dam : 

Height above surface of rock . 184 feet. 

Height above bed of river . 129 

Length 1,250 - 

Proposed Wachusett reservoir : 

Contents .... 63,068,000,000 gallons. 

Length 8.41 miles. 

Maximum depth . . . 129 feet. 

Average depth ... 46 " 

Water surface . . • 6.56 sq. miles. 

Wachusett aqueduct already built : 

Length 12 miles. 

Sudbury reservoir and dam : 

Length of dam . . . 1,865 feet. 

Water surface of reservoir . 2 sq. miles. 

Contents .... 7,500,000,000 gallons. 

Maximum depth ... 65 feet. 

Average depth ... 19 

The amount of water now on store (June, 1898) in the 

system is about seventeen thousand million gallons 
(17,000,000,000). 



S6 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

The water flows by an open waterway from Sudbury 
dam to Framingham reservoir No. 3. It then flows 
through two 48-inch pipes to the Sudbury aqueduct, 
which extends from Pramingham to Chestnut Hill 
reservoir. A new aqueduct will be required in the near 
future extending from Sudbury reservoir to a point in 
Weston a short distance west of the Charles Eiver, with 
a total length of 13.26 miles. This aqueduct at its termi- 
nus will be about 60 feet higher than Chestnut Hill 
reservoir, so that it will furnish a supply by gravity 
through pipes to the lower part of the metropolitan 
district. 

Distribution System. — An addition to the Chest- 
nut Hill pumping-station is building, and a new pumping- 
engine is in course of erection, with a capacity of 
30,000,000 gallons. The present pumping-station con- 
tains a high-service Leavitt pump of 25,000,000 gallons 
capacity, and two Gaskill pumps of 8,000,000 gallons 
capacity each. A new pumping-station is to be erected 
easterly of the present station, designed for the low 
service, and three engines, each with a capacity of 
35,000,000 gallons, have been contracted for. 

Two lines of 48-inch pipes are required to be laid 
from Chestnut Hill reservoir to supply water to the 
communities north of Charles River and to Spot Pond ; 
the latter will be used as the main distributing reser- 
voir for the low-service system. This pond is 20 feet 
higher than Chestnut Hill reservoir, and the water is 
pumped into it by the existing pumps, which are used 
temporarily for that purpose. About forty-three miles 
of distributing mains, from 48 to 36 inches, have been 
laid, and about ten miles more of pipe will be required. 

The Metropolitan Water Works are under the charge 



Metropolitan Water Works. 87 

of the Metropolitan Water Board, Hon. Henry H. 
Sprague, Chairman, and Mr. Frederic P. Stearns is 
Chief Engineer. Detailed information may be pro- 
cured from Mr. Desmond FitzGerald, Department Engi- 
neer, 3 Mt. Vernon street, by parties desiring to visit 
the works. 



METROPOLITAN SEWERAGE. 



THE sewerage of Boston and twenfcy-six cities and 
towns in its immediate vicinity is effected by four 
principal systems of sewers, all the sewage being finally 
discharged into the waters of Boston Harbor at two 
points, Moon Head and Deer Island, the former on the 
south and the latter on the north side of the harbor. 
The oldest system is that known as the Boston Main 
Drainage Works, discharging at Moon Head. This was 
built and is operated by the city of Boston, but in order 
to prevent the pollution of rivers in the metropolitan 
district it soon afterwards became necessary to invoke 
the aid of the Commonwealth, and other systems — 
one wholly independent of the Boston Main Drainage 
Works and two connecting with them only for disposal 
purposes, but all three built and operated by the State 
— have since been added. 

It will be convenient to describe separately the sys- 
tems built by the city and the State, giving to the former 
its usual name of '^ The Boston Main Drainage Works," 
and to the latter, collectively, the name by which they 
are usually known, viz. : " The Metropolitan Sewers." 

THE BOSTON MAIN DKAINAGE WOEKS. 

These works take the sewage from the greater part 
of the city of Boston and also the sewage of six other 
cities and towns. 

Their principal features are : 



Metropolitan Sewerage. 89 



A system of intercepting sewers, generally below the 
level of low tide, along the margins of the city, to re- 
ceive the dry-weather flow and a portion of the storm- 
water from the common sewers ; a system of regulators 
and overflows in connection with the main and inter- 
cepting sewers ; the main sewer, into which the inter- 
cepting sewers empty, leading to a screening chamber 
near the pumping-station ; the pumping-station, where 
the sewage is lifted about thirty-five feet through force 
mains to the deposit sewer, in which heavy matters 
deposit before reaching the tunnel under Dorchester 
Bay ; the high-level sewer, leading from the tunnel to 
the reservoir at Moon Head, in which the sewage is 
stored during the latter half of the ebb and the whole 
of the flood tide ; the low-level sewers, through which 
the sewage is discharged from the reservoir into the 
sea soon after the beginning of the ebb tide. 

The screens or cages for intercepting coarse matters 
before they reach the pumps, and the machinery for 
hoisting the cages, are located in a small stone building 
a short distance above the pumping-station. The 
material intercepted is dried by pressing and burned 
under the boilers. 

This station contains two high-duty compound pump- 
ing-engines, having a nominal capacity of 25,000,000 
gallons per day each and a much greater actual capacity. 
It also contains two low-duty engines of the same 
nominal capacity for use when the sewage is increased 
by rain. Provision has been made for extending the 
pumping-station when necessary, and plans are nearly 
completed for a 75,000,000 gallons high-duty pumping- 
engine. 

Each of these large twin sewers has a dam at its 



90 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

lower end by which the sewage is kept at a sufficiently 
high level to insure a sluggish current which will per- 
mit the heavier matter, such as sand, coal, ashes, water- 
logged matches, bits of paper, small sticks, and rags, to 
deposit. 

The only feature of the apparatus for removing de- 
posits which can readily be seen is the wooden " sludge 
tank '' on the edge of the channel. The deposits in the 
sewers are first moved to a point nearly opposite the 
tank by a movable scraping and flushing machine 
operated by the current ; then are fed to a pipe leading 
to the tank by machinery operated by a small engine ; 
and are conveyed to the tank by a strong current of 
sewage, there to be again deposited. 

The sewage, after passing through the tank, flows back 
into the sewers below the dams already referred to at 
their ends. The deposits are emptied from the tank 
into scows and towed out to sea. 

DORCHESTEll-BAY TUNNEL. 

Total length 7,160 feet. 

Inside diameter of brick-work ... 7^ " 

HIGH-LEVEL SEWER FROM TUNNEL TO RESERVOIR. 

Length 5,900 feet. 

Inside dimensions of sewer, 11 ft. high and 12 ft. wide. 

The discharge of the sewage from the reservoirs 
usually occupies about forty minutes, and, including 
the time occupied by cleaning the reservoirs, more or 
less sewage is entering the harbor for an hour and a 
half or two hours during the first half of each ebb tide, 



Metropolitan Setae rage. 91 

and during the remainder of the time is stored in the 
reservoirs. 

Area of reservoir .... 5 acres. 

Capacity of reservoir . . . 25,000,000 gallons. 
An extension of the reservoir is now 

being made which will increase 

the total storage to . . . 50,000,000 " 

The sewage, being lighter than the salt water into 
which it is discharged, rises to the surface, and at the 
end of half an hour after the discharge is begun covers 
an area a half mile in diameter, which can be plainly 
seen by its color and because it contains enough grease 
to still the waves. At the end of another hour it has 
been so far diluted that no trace of it can be seen ; 
and chemical analyses show that the water which has 
received the sewage, when it reaches a point two miles 
down-stream from the outlet, contains but little more 
polluting matter than the water not affected by this 
sewage, and less polluting matter than the water in 
the harbor near the city. After having reached this 
degree of dilution the currents continue to flow outward 
with increasing force for about three hours. The sew- 
age has not fouled the beaches along its course except, 
to a small extent, close to the outlet in a cove which is 
sheltered from the current by the embankment covering 
the discharge sewers. The original design of the works 
included the construction of a sea-wall to shut off this 
cove, as it was anticipated that an eddy would be formed 
at this point and cause some fouling of the beach. This 
sea-wall is now under construction, and will probably be 
completed this season. 



92 Principal Scientific Institutions. 



THE METROPOLITAN SEWERS. 

The metropolitan sewers have been built by the Com- 
monwealth to convey to the sea the sewage of districts 
from which it would otherwise be discharged into 
rivers and become offensive. These sewers traverse 
numerous different municipalities, and there is no au- 
thority except that of the Commonwealth sufficiently 
general to embrace the entire region. The cost of 
these sewers is apportioned by law among the commu- 
nities whose sewage they convey. 

The works comprise three distinct systems of inter- 
cepting sewers : 

The North Metropolitan System includes about 
46 miles of main sewers, which form the outlet for 
the sewage of sixteen municipalities, including Win- 
throp, Chelsea, East Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, 
Maiden, and other cities and towns in or near the 
valley of the Mystic River, with a population of about 
387,000. Its most distant point is about 18 miles 
from the outlet at Deer Island. In this system are 
four pumping-stations and eight inverted siphons at 
the crossings of streams, five of which streams are 
tidal. The Charles-river System, along the southern 
bank of that river, is about eight miles long, provides 
an outlet for the sewage of six municipalities, with a 
population of about 107,000, and connects with the 
Boston Sewerage System, which discharges into Bos- 
ton Harbor at Moon Island. The Neponset-river 
System, about ten miles long, provides an outlet for 
the sewage of five municipalities, w^ith a population 
of about 50,000. This also connects with the Boston 
Sewerage System. 



Metropolitan Sewerage. 93 



The metropolitan sewers (not including any local or 
town sewers) had cost to Sept. 30, 1897, the date of 
the last statement, f 6,430,000. An important addi- 
tion now contemplated is a high-level sewer to con- 
nvey by gravity the sew^age from the high lands in 
the valleys of the Charles and Neponset Rivers to an 
independent outfall in Boston Harbor. 

The North Metropolitan System is the most impor- 
tant from an engineering point of view. The main 
sewer begins at Stoneham, 15 inches in diameter and 
47 feet above mean low w^ater, steadily increasing in size 
to the pumping-station at East Boston, where it is 
about nine feet in diameter. On the wa}^ it receives the 
sewage from the lateral valleys, some of which has to be 
pumped at North Somerville and Charlestown to the 
level of the main sewer. At the East Boston pumping- 
station the sewage is raised about 15 feet to a sewer 
nine feet in diameter, leading to the pumpiug-station 
at Deer Island, where it is again raised and is dis- 
charged into the sea at an outlet about 1,800 feet from 
the southerly end of the island. 

One of the most interesting of the siphons on the 
North Metropolitan System is at Shirley Gut, where 
some unusual methods of construction were adopted. 
This siphon is about 264 feet long. It consists of a 
shell of riveted tank steel, which is lined with three 
rings of brickwork. The siphon was constructed on 
shore in four pieces. The ends of each piece were 
closed by bulkheads. The piece, consisting of the steel 
shell, the brick lining, the bulkheads, and outer timber- 
ing, was then moved on rollers into the water and 
floated to its position over the trench previously 
dredged. Water w^as introduced and the piece was 
sunk to its proper place and joined to the work already 



94 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

in position. The tidal current at Shirley Gut is swift, 
and it was necessary to close the Gut temporaril}^ by a 
bulkhead of sheet piling. This siphon forms a depres- 
sion of about 22 feet in the axis of the sewer. The 
interior diameter of the siphon is six feet two inches. 
The sewer leading from this siphon to the pumping- 
station on Deer Island is about nine feet one inch in 
diameter. 

At this pumping-station the sewage is raised an aver- 
age lieight of 11 feet to the outfall sewer which conveys 
it to the sea, into which it flows continuously. 

The outfall sewer was constructed by excavating 
within a coffer-dam for a distance of about 700 feet 
from the shore. Beyond this distance it was con- 
structed by a i)rocess somewhat similar to that used for 
the Shirley Gut siphon. The sections (each about 52 feet 
long), instead of being made on the beach and moved 
down on rollers, were made in strong cradles suspended 
from the side of the wharf, which cradles, with their 
contained pipes, were lowered when necessary by pow- 
erful screws and connecting machinery. Each section 
of pipe weighed about 200,000 pounds. A bulkhead 
was built in each end, braces were placed inside, and 
the section was then ready to be lowered into the sea. 
As already stated, the cradle could be lowered by the 
machinery referred to into the water and the section of 
pipe could then be floated out and towed to the out- 
fall. The section was lowered into place at the outfall 
after being partially filled with water. The sections 
were connected with bolts and were covered with gravel. 
The pipes and junctions were found when entered to 
be perfectly water-tight. 

The pumps at each of the pumping-stations are of 



Metropolitan Sewerage. 95 

the centrifugal type. Those at Deer Island and East 
Boston have each a capacity of raising 45,000,000 gal- 
lons per 24 hours to a height of about 19 feet. Those 
at Charlestown have about half that capacity. There 
are two pumping-engines at each station, and a third is 
to be installed soon. 

The work of construction on the metropolitan sewers 
was begun in May, 1890. The Charles Eiver Valley Sys- 
tem was put into operation early in the spring of 1892, 
having been completed during the preceding winter. 
Pumps in the stations on the North Metropolitan 
System were started as follows : East Boston, Feb. 
13, 1895; Deer Island, March 5, 1895; Charlestown, 
July 29, 1895. Practically all the difficult and impor- 
tant work on this system had been completed some 
months prior to these dates. Some additions were made 
to it later. The jSTeponset Valley System was begun 
April 6, 1896, and was substantially completed in 1897. 
The maintenance of these works includes the operation 
of the four pumping-stations, the care of 65 miles of 
intercepting sewers, siphons, and other structures, and 
engineering studies for extensions and care of works. 



TRANSIT IN BOSTON. 



THE city of Boston is peculiarly situated as regards 
transit. The business portion of the city is 
located on the original peninsula, which, until recently, 
was connected on the south side with the mainland by 
a narrow " neck " of land nearly coincident with a part 
of the present Washington street. By the fillings of the 
portion around this peninsula the area of the city proper 
has been enlarged from the original 783 acres in 1804 to 
over 1,800 acres. The large section known as the Back 
Bay, most of the South End, and considerable areas 
near the Union Stations and elsewhere consist entirely 
of " made " ground. On the west side of the original 
peninsula is Beacon Hill, occupied for residences, and 
including Boston Common. The business district oc- 
cupies the east and north sides of the peninsula. 

Owing to the limited area of the city proper, even at 
present a large proportion of the persons doing business 
in Boston live of necessity in the outlying districts or 
suburban towns. Thus, in 1890, the population of the 
city proper, comprising the original peninsula with its 
additions of made land, was 161,330, and the population 
of the other districts comprised within the present city 
was 287,147, making a total of 448,447 ; while included 
in the so-called metropolitan district, within a radius 
of 10 miles from the State House, the total population 
was 854,740. At present this population is about 1,000- 
000. The business section of the peninsula above de- 



Transit in Boston. 97 

scribed is the business centre for this popidation, aud, 
more remotely, for the whole State. Into the city from 
all directions the tide of travel streams in the morning, 
to return at night. 

Within a radius of three-quarters of a mile are the 
terminal stations of the six steam railroads entering the 
city, which bring in and carry out over 100,000 pas- 
sengers daily ; but an even greater number are carried 
by the numerous electric-car lines of the Boston Elevated 
Railway Company and the Lynn and Boston Eailway 
Company, which are the only companies running street 
cars in the city. 

This tide of travel is obstructed on the west by the 
Common and by Beacon Hill, so that no car lines run 
westward between Boylston street and Cambridge 
street. Moreover, the streets in the business portion 
of Boston are narrow and crooked and the sidewalks 
are notoriously insufficient. As a result of these con- 
ditions there is in the very centre of the city proper 
what is known as the " congested district." All the 
street-car lines aim to pass in a north or south direction 
through or into this district, which at one place is only 
700 feet in width. 

It is to be noted that the traffic is a traffic which 
tends to or from a common centre, and not a traffic in 
parallel lines ; also that many of the car lines entering 
the congested district do not pass through it, but are 
looped or turned back at some point within it. 

The limit of capacity of the streets and car lines in 
Boston was reached several years ago, and after years 
of agitation, and the consideration of many plans, the 
building of a subway, whicli is now nearly completed, 
was authorized. The commission to which the work 



98 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

was entrusted was not required to build a subway, but 
was authorized to do so if deemed expedient. The 
subway plan was adopted, because street widenings 
would not only have been much more expensive, but 
would not have secured rapid transit for the surface 
cars, owing to the interference of other traffic and 
danger to the public, especially at the numerous street 
crossings. The plan of building an elevated railway 
through the centre of the city was also barred, on 
account of the narrowness of the streets and the great 
damage which would result to the abutting estates. 

There are two southern entrances to the subway: 
one in the Public Garden near Boylston street, and one 
in the triangle formed by Tremont street, Shawmut 
avenue, and Pleasant street. Each of these entrances 
accommodates two tracks. These tracks come together 
at Boylston street, between which point and Park street 
there are four tracks. At Park street the two interior 
tracks form a loop, while the outer tracks are carried 
through the city under Tremont street to the north. 
These outer tracks are also connected by means of a loop, 
so that cars may either return from that point or con- 
tinue through the city. 

On the north side four tracks enter the subway near 
the Union Station, and the arrangement at Park street 
is practically duplicated at Scollay square. 

Provision is thus made for carrying a large number 
of people to and from the centre of the city, both on 
the north and on the south, and for carrying a smaller 
number completely through the city. 

Beyond the limits of the subway the two outer tracks 
are soon to be connected with the elevated structure, 
which will be continued on the south to Dudley street. 



Transit in Boston. 99 

in the district known as Roxbiiry, and on the north to 
Sullivan square in Charlestown. 

The principal features of the subway are as follows : 

Its total length from either of the southern entrances 
to the northern entrance is about a mile and a half. 

The number of miles of track is five and three-tenths. 

The height, from the top of the rail to the roof, is 
fourteen feet. 

The standard width of the two-track portion is 
twenty-four feet ; of the four-track portion, forty-eight 
feet. 

The roof is formed either by a brick arch or by 
horizontal steel beams with small brick arches between 
them. 

The walls are either entirely of concrete or with 
vertical steel beams imbedded in concrete. 

Electricity alone is used as a motive power and for 
lighting. 

The Boston subway is the largest subway in the 
world in cross-section, and the only one containing 
four tracks. 

It is the only subway adequately lighted throughout 
by electricity. 

There are no grade crossings. Such crossings are 
avoided by means of interior loops, above referred to, 
and at junction points by means of sub-subways, as at 
the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets and near 
the Pleasant-street entrance. 

The platforms are island platforms ; that is, they have 
a track on either side. In Scollay square there is a 
triangular platform, which has a track on three sides. 
These platforms have great capacity for traffic. It 
is estimated that the two island platforms at Park 



loo Principal Scientific Institutions. 

street will, when the subway is in full operation, 
accommodate a traffic greater than the present traffic 
of the steam railroads entering the city either on the 
north or on the south. 

The estimated cost of tlie subway before the work 
was undertaken was $5,000,000, including land. This 
estimate will not be exceeded. 

Construction was begun in the Public Garden, March 
28, 1895. 

The subway has been built by the city of Boston and 
is its property. 

It has been leased by the commission which con- 
structed it to the West End Street Kailway Company 
for a term of twenty years, at an annual rental of four 
and seven-eighths per cent, of the actual net cost, 
whatever that may be, provided it does not exceed the 
sum of $7,000,000. 

The property and franchises of the West End Street 
Railway Company, including its rights under the lease, 
have been assigned to and are now held by the Boston 
Elevated Eailway Company. 

Hon. George G. Crocker is Chairman of the Transit 
Commission. Mr. Howard A. Carson is its Chief 
Engineer. 



GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF 
THE BOSTON DISTRICT. 



THE resistant crystalline rocks of the uplands of 
New England include belts and basins of weaker 
rocks, generally stratified, which have been worn down 
to valleys and lowlands. The low ground thus deter- 
mined has been from the beginning of New England 
history much more attractive to settlement than the 
rugged uplands. The basin occupied by Boston and its 
suburban communities holds a large part of the popula- 
tion of Massachusetts within its hilly rim. To-day, 
when the higher uplands of the Commonwealth are 
decreasing in population, their loss is more than 
counterbalanced by the growth of the villages and 
cities in the valleys. 

The uplands reach altitudes of a thousand or fifteen 
hundred feet in the interior, and there the valleys are 
strongly incised. A belt of relatively weak sandstones 
— easily worked in ornamental architecture, but poorly 
adapted to withstand the weathering of the ages — de- 
termines the Connecticut Valley, which lies from five to 
eight hundred feet lower than the hill country that 
encloses it. Near the coast the moderate altitude of 
the uplands does not place them in so strong a contrast 
with the lowlands ; the difference of elevation between 
the lowlands of the Boston basin and their enclosing 
hills is only from one to three hundred feet. A slight 
depression of the land has allowed the sea to encroach 



I02 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

upon its borders ; thus a part of the basin is drowned 
in the reentrant of Boston Harbor, while the uplands 
advance to the rocky shores of Lynn, Salem, and 
Gloucester on the north and of Nantasket and Cohasset 
on the south. The reentrant would reach still farther 
inland if it were not for the heavy deposits of drift by 
which the floor of the basin is somewhat raised in level ; 
but even so, a great advantage came to Boston from its 
better connection with the interior, especially since the 
days of railroads ; and chiefly on account of this ad- 
vantage it has outstripped its early rivals on the JS'ew 
England coast. 

The uplands that enclose the basin may be well seen 
at Arlington Heights on the north or from Blue Hills 
on the south ; the latter rising to a distinctly greater 
height than their neighbors and commanding an exten- 
sive view. All the uplands consist of igneous or 
metamorphic rocks of involved structure. They are as 
a rule of deep-seated origin, the formerly overlying 
masses having been removed by long-continued denuda- 
tion. The intricate structural relations produced by 
successive intrusions and eruptions of granites, mela- 
phyres, and felsites are well exhibited on the wave- 
swept shore of Marblehead Neck and thence southward 
for half a mile. The extensive quarries of Quincy are 
worked in a massive intrusion of granite. 

The lowlands of the basin are by no means level ; in- 
deed, their coarse conglomerates form strong hills in 
E-oxbury and Dorchester, and their amygdaloidal mela- 
phyres rise in ridges through Brighton and Newton. 
The lower ground is for the most part underlaid by slates, 
which occasionally rise through the drift cover, as in 
Somerville and Wollaston ; in Braintree a small slate 



Geology and Geography of the Bostofi District. 103 

quarry has long been famous for affording fossils of an 
ancient trilobite, Paracloxides Harlani. Igneous dikes 
cutting the slates and conglomerates are often seen in 
quarries and railroad cuts. 

The general observer will be less impressed by the 
bed rocks, which in spite of their variety are exposed 
on but a small part of the surface, than by the overly- 
ing drift, whose different forms are the chief determi- 
nants of the local landscape in much of the Boston 
district. Where ledges are freshly uncovered they 
suggest glacial action by their smoothed and striated 
surface, and by the immediate change from firm un- 
weathered rock to the overlying discrete or unconsoli- 
dated materials ; thus presenting a strong contrast to 
the blending of rock and soil that prevails south of 
the limits of glaciation. Where the drift is compara- 
tively thin, it veneers the rock floor, preserving its form, 
as is frequently the case on the uplands ; but the drift 
has generally assumed a shape of its own, unlike that 
of the under rocks. 

The most striking features of the drift are the long 
elliptical hills, known as drumlins, that rise with arched 
crests to heights of one or two hundred feet above their 
base. Corey's Hill, and many others in Brookline and 
the Newtons, are of this nature. Beacon Hill, bearing 
the State House, in Boston and Bunker and Breed's Hills 
in Charlestown are drumlins. Many islands in the har- 
bor are of the same origin. All these hills consist of 
unstratified drift or till, compact but not consolidated, 
a conglomeration of coarse and fine materials, parti}' of 
local origin, partly derived from the rocks that outcrop 
to the northwest of their site. Their longer axes trend 
to the southeast, closely parallel to one another and to 



I04 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

the direction of the latest striations on the neighboring 
ledges. Hence it cannot be doubted that the drumlins 
received their form as well as their substance and struct- 
ure directly from the action of the creeping ice sheet. 
They are best explained as comparable to sand bars in 
rivers : the result of gradual accumulation in a form of 
least resistance at such places as received more drift 
than could be dragged fartlier forward. Their slopes are 
still so little washed and gullied that the duration of 
post-glacial time must be short. Drumlins similar to 
those of the Boston district are strewn over many parts 
of the New England uplands. They are generally 
cleared and farmed: fields marked off by stone walls 
lap smoothly over their rounded profiles ; thus they are 
readily distinguished from the more rugged, wooded 
ridges. 

The till, either in veneers or in drumlins, was formed 
when the margin of the ice sheet lay some distance to 
the south, near its outer terminal moraines. During 
the disappearance of the ice its retreating margin with- 
drew northward across New England. Where it halted 
for a time moraines of retreat were formed, but these 
are few and discontinuous ; even where best developed, 
as at Dogtown Commons, near Gloucester, they are weak 
compared to the terminal moraines that form consider- 
able belts of rolling hills and hollows farther south ; the 
hills of Manomet, just beyond Plymouth, being the 
nearest large accumulations of this kind. 

A common variety of drift deposit formed during the 
retreat of the ice is seen in the gravel hills of various 
forms, generally occupying valleys and lowlands, where 
the drainage of the melting ice sheet ran away. Irreg- 
ular gravel hills, thirty to fifty feet high, built of well- 



Geology and Geography of the Boston District. 105 

stratified gravels and sands, and known as kames, are 
plentiful at Auburndale and about Newton Lower Falls, 
where they have been extensively excavated to provide 
material for filling in the Back Bay of Boston, now 
built over by its finest dwellings. Serpentine ridges of 
washed and roughly stratified gravels, known as eskers, 
are interpreted as the fillings of subglacial tunnels, 
along which active streams ran forward under a strong 
head of pressure from higher ground still occupied by 
the ice sheet on the north. A remarkably fine esker 
may be seen in Auburndale ; it is cut across by the 
circuit line of the Boston & Albany Railroad between 
Eiverside and Woodland stations. A walk of half a 
mile along the narrow crest of the ridge, gently rising 
and falling, turning gracefully to the right and left, 
will give a good view of this curious little geographical 
element. Another excellent esker is found between 
Newtonville and Newton Centre, and this one is of 
particular interest, inasmuch as it leads forward into 
a well-formed sand plain or delta of fine, stratified sands, 
capped with gravels. This deposit evidently marks the 
site of a temporary ice-dammed lake, at a height of 
about a hundred feet above present sea level, into which 
an active but short-lived stream ran from the retreating 
ice sheet. The contrast between the northern margin 
of the delta, where it bordered on the ice sheet, and the 
free southern margin, where it grew forward about a 
quarter of a mile into standing water, is very clearly 
seen. The electric cars of the Newton Boulevard line 
cross the delta at its middle, and at present pass by 
a fine section of sands and gravels on its western side. 
Ponds are often found in close association with plains 
of sands and gravels, so that it has come to be believed 



io6 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

that the pond basins represent spaces that were occupied 
by more or less isolated and lingering masses of ice, 
while the sands were washed into the evacuated space 
about them. Spy Pond in Arlington, Walden Pond in 
Concord, and many others in or near the Boston basin, 
might be mentioned as excellent examples of this kind. 

The lower grounds of the basin are often occupied 
with bedded clays, extensively pitted for brick-making 
in ISTorth Cambridge. The clays contain occasional 
striated stones and bowlders, supposed to have been ice- 
rafted into the water body — probably an expansion of 
Boston Harbor during a lower stand of the land — in 
which the clays were deposited. A post-glacial age 
has generally been assigned to tliese clays, but recent 
observations show that in some cases they underlie the 
till, and hence in such cases at least they must be re- 
garded as of earlier date than the last glacial epoch. 
Near the coast line there are extensive salt marshes at 
high-tide level, intersected by irregular tidal channels. 
The largest of these near Boston is seen on the way to 
Lynn. The marshes yield a crop of salt hay, which 
when harvested and stacked on low stilts give a bit 
of characteristic local landscape. 

The phenomena of the shore line are exhibited in 
great variety in the neighborhood of Boston. The 
waves fume and fret on the slopes of the rocky up- 
lands; here the shore is ragged, sufficient time not 
having elapsed since the waves worked at the present 
level to accomplish much work in cutting back the 
shore line into cliffs based by beaches. The peninsulas 
of Nahant and Marblehead Neck, and the greater part 
of the " North Shore " from Salem to Gloucester, is of 
this kind. Pocket beaches swing in smooth concave 



Geology and Geography of the Boston District. 107 

curves around little coves between the ragged head- 
lands ; here the waves break in even rollers. 

Cliffs and beaches are extensively developed on the 
drumlins of Boston Harbor. Many drumlins have been 
reduced to less than half their original size ; the bold 
cliffs by which they are now terminated on the ocean 
side giving excellent sections of their structure. The 
beaches at the base of the cliffs are often extended be- 
yond the island from which their material is supplied, 
and a number of islands have in this way been united 
to the mainland. In other cases the growth of tidal 
marshes back of the beaches has aided in converting 
sea into land. An afternoon trip by steamboat to Pem- 
berton Landing, by train to Nantasket, and back by 
boat, gives fine illustration of many of these features. 
If a stop be made from the train at Point Allerton a 
cliffed drumlin may be ascended and a fine view gained 
far out to sea and inward across the harbor. 



PLACES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST. 



OF the historic landmarks which give Boston a 
flavor of antiquity and a charm unique among 
American cities, the Old State House, so called, is of 
the first importance from the wealth of its associations. 
As the seat of the royal governors and the Provincial 
Council, of the Legislature of the Province and the 
Commonwealth, of the higher courts, the place where 
"the child Independence was born," when James Otis, 
with a "tongue of flame," delivered his bold argument 
against Writs of Assistance in the presence of the big- 
wigged and scarlet-robed justices fourteen years before 
the outbreak of the Eevolution, the Old State House is 
distinguished as the most interesting historical building 
in the United States. It has stood since 1747, and 
was built on the walls of its predecessor, the second 
Town House in Boston, which like the first one [1658- 
1711], on the same spot, was destroyed by fire. The ex- 
terior above the second story is now generally as it 
appeared in the Province period, while the interior 
above the same story shows essentially the original 
architecture, the structure having been rescued from 
vandal hands and these portions restored about six- 
teen years ago, when the upper floors passed to the 
custody of the Bostonian Society, a worthy Boston in- 
stitution incorporated in 1881 " to promote the study of 
the history of the city " and " the preservation of its 
antiquities." This society maintains in the restored 



Places of Historical Intejest. 109 

apartments, or memorial halls, as tliey are termed, an 
exhibition of historical treasures which is open to the 
public without fee. In the Province period the second 
floor was divided into three chambers with lobbies — 
the Council Chamber at the east end, opening upon the 
balcony from which proclamations were heralded to the 
people ; the Representatives' Chamber in the middle ; and 
the Court Chamber at the west end. During the Revolu- 
tion, when the General Court was enlarged, the Court 
Chamber was taken into the Representatives' Chamber, 
the courts having removed to the first separate court- 
house built in 1768-69 on Queen now Court street. Of 
these halls the Council Chamber is preserved in its 
original form. A board is here inscribed with a concise 
history of this memorable apartment. U|)on the forma- 
tion of the State government it became the Senate Cham- 
ber, the Governor and Council of the Commonwealth 
being established in the old Province House, the stately 
otficial residence of the royal governors which stood back 
from the present Washington street, nearly opposite the 
head of Milk street. This building remained the State 
House till the completion of the capitol on Beacon Hill 
in 1798. When Boston was made a city it became the 
first City Hall. Originally the superstructure was sup- 
ported by ten Doric pillars, and the street floor, as in 
the previous building, was a " walk for the merchants " 
— the first merchants' exchange. Then the main 
entrance was from the east front. A brief sketch of 
the building is published in pamphlet form by the Bos- 
tonian Society. Its history witli that of its predeces- 
sors may be more fully traced in the " Old State House 
Memorial," entitled ^' Rededication of the Old State 
House " (6th edition, 1892), published by the city, and in 



no Priiicipal Scientific Institutions. 

the late George H. Moore's pamphlet, " Prytaneum Bos- 
toniense : Notes on the History of tlie Old State House, 
formerly known as the Town House in Boston ; the 
Court House in Boston ; the Province Court House, the 
State House, and the City Hall." 

The neighborhood of the Old State House is historic 
ground. The building stands in the first market place 
of the settlement. Near it on the south side of the 
square, at about where the Brazer Building stands, was 
the first Puritan meeting-house. On the north side, 
about where Devonshire street continues, was the first 
minister's house and garden. Below the meeting-house, 
the site covered by the great Exchange Building, was 
Governor Winthrop's first house — a recent discovery, 
made by a delver among old deeds, who upsets the 
theory of previous authorities that Winthrop's only 
house was that which stood opposite the foot of School 
street by the " Governor's Green," and was burned by 
the British during the siege. Where the towering 
Ames Building stands was the home of Diinster, the 
first president of Harvard College. Where the Sears 
Building stands was Governor John Leverett's house. 
In the square in front of the Old State House, during 
the Stamp Act excitement, a stamped clearance was 
publicly burned. Here occurred the so-called " Boston 
Massacre" of 1770, the point where Preston's file of 
soldiers stood now marked by a circle in the paving 
near the Exchange-street corner. 

The Old South Meeting-house, the " Sanctuary of 
Freedom," where were held the great popular meetings 
which " kindled the flame that fired the Eevolution," 
and Faneuil Hall, the " Cradle of Liberty," rank close 
to the Old State House in historical importance. The 



Places of Historical Interest. 1 1 1 

plain brick meeting-house, dating from 1739, is further 
distinguished by its situation on Governor Winthrop's 
" Green," occupying the site of the first South Meeting- 
house [1670-1739], for which the garden lot attached to 
the governor's house was given by Madam Norton, 
widow of the good John Norton, third minister of the 
First Church, into whose possession the estate had 
come. In the " steeple chamber " was Thomas Prince's 
" New England Library," precious papers from which 
were burned in the stove set up to warm the meeting- 
house when Burgoyne's troopers turned it into a " rid- 
ing school" during the siege ; and from which, perhaps, 
disappeared at the evacuation, '■'■ strayed or stolen," the 
Bradford manuscript '^ History of New Plimouth," dis- 
covered in later years in the library of the Bishop of 
London, and now, recovered, preserved in the State 
Library at the State House. The historic structure, 
with its inspiring memories, is a spared monument 
through the exertions of a number of patriotic Boston 
men and women, who, twenty-two years ago, in the 
'' centennial year," moved successfully for its preserva- 
tion when its demolition was imminent, the Old South 
Society having removed to the sumptuous modern 
church which it had built in the Back Bay quarter. A 
loan collection of relics occupies the interior. A small 
charge of admission is made, which is applied to the 
Preservation Fund. The auditorium is occasionally 
used for meetings to consider questions of public con- 
cern ; and here are given the regular series of " Old 
South Lectures to Young People," an institution estab- 
lished by the late Mrs. Mary Hemenway, the fame 
and influence of which have become widespread. The 
events of Revolutionary interest here are sketched in a 



Principal Scientific Institutions, 



pamphlet history of the meeting-house, published in 
1876, for the benefit of the Preservation Fund. In the 
earlier South Church, a " little cedar meeting-house," 
Franklin was baptized ; his birthplace was opposite the 
south side, on Milk street, the site now covered by 
the building numbered 15. 

Faneuil Hall as it now appears is the Faneuil Hall 
of the Kevolutionary period widened, heightened, and 
embellished, under the direction of the pioneer Boston 
architect, Bulfinch, in 1805. At that time the third 
story was added, the hall was enlarged, the galleries 
resting on the Doric columns were put in, and the plat- 
form, with its extended x^art, was built. The portraits 
which adorn the walls are mostly copies, the originals 
being in the Museum of Fine Arts for safe-keeping. 
The large canvas back of the rostrum, by Healy, repre- 
senting Webster delivering his reply to Hayne in the 
old Senate Chamber, is of peculiar interest from the 
fact that the faces in the audience are portraits of Sen- 
ators and public men of that day. The historic build- 
ing, which Otis, the orator of the occasion, dedicated to 
the " cause of liberty," and which the " service of the 
popular leaders to the country associated with the idea 
of civil freedom," dates from 1763, having been rebuilt 
by the town on the ruins of the first Faneuil Hall and 
Market House, Peter Faneuil's gift (erected in 1741- 
42), which was burned, all but the outer walls, two 
years before. It was from the first the regular place 
of town-meetings, the Old South being used when 
greater room was required. In the upper story is the 
armory of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Com- 
pany, the oldest militar}^ organization in the country, 
dating from 1638. The company has here a varied 
assortment of relics. 



Places of Historical Interest. 113 

Christ Chuuch, at the North End, which bears on 
its face the tablet stating that Paul Revere's signal lan- 
terns Avere displayed in its steeple the night before 
Lexington and Concord, is the oldest church building 
now standing in Boston, seven years older than the Old 
South. While its claim to distinction as Revere's signal 
tower is disputed by authorities on local history (whose 
contention is that the lanterns were shown on the " Old 
North " Church in the neighboring North square, which 
was torn down during the siege and used for fire-wood by 
the British soldiers), it is in itself interesting, having 
suffered comparatively little change through the century 
and three-quarters of its existence. Among the mural 
ornaments of the interior is Houdon's bust of Washing- 
ton, which was placed here but ten years after Washing- 
ton's death, the first monumental efiigy of him to be set 
up in the country. The rarest of the old furnishings are 
retained, and its choice possessions include pieces of a 
silver communion service, bearing the royal arms, given 
by George II. in 1733, a massive christening basin, 
which has been in use since 1730, and various other 
ancient things. In the tower is a chime of eight bells, 
hung in 1744, "the first ring of bells cast for the 
British Empire in North America," as one of them is 
inscribed. The steeple is a copy, said to be exact, of 
the original one, which fell in a gale in 1804. It was 
erected in 1807 from a model by Bulfinch. The church 
is open to visitors daily, and the sexton serves as guide, 
for a fee of 2h cents. It is fully described and its 
history outlined in the Rev. Edward G-. Porter's 
^^ Rambles in Old Boston, New England." 

Copp's Hill Burying-ground, hard by Christ 
Church, embraces in its oldest part (on the northeast 



114 Principal Scientific Institutions. 

side) the North Burial-ground, first used in 1659. The 
other portions were additions, or separate cemeteries 
laid out at later periods. All, now old, were united 
under one name some years ago. Its sightly situation, 
fine shade trees, and footpaths among the thick-clus- 
tered tablets of early date and often curious design, some 
with family coats-of-arms, render it one of the most 
attractive of the ancient burial places of the city. Here 
are the tombs of the Mathers — Increase, Cotton, and 
Samuel ; of the father and grandfather of Thomas 
Hutchinson (their remains long since scattered by a 
vandal and another name cut in place of Hutchinson) ; 
of Nicholas Upsall, the martyr friend of the perse- 
cuted Quakers, whom Whittier depicts ; Jesse Lee, the 
early preacher of Methodism ; Edmund Hartt, the 
builder of " Old Ironsides," at his shipyard now marked 
by Constitution Wharf ; and various others of note. 
One tablet is much dented with bullet-marks, it having 
been a favorite target with British soldiers at the time 
of the siege. The battery from which Charlestown was 
fired during the Battle of Bunker Hill was on the west 
side of the ground. A sketch of " Old Copp's Hill and 
Burial Ground," prepared by the superintendent of the 
place, gives considerable detail, while Whitmore's 
" Copp's Hill Book of Epitaphs " is an authority. 

This quarter of the city— the "Old North End," 
the first "elegant part" of the town — is full of 
historical interest. Although beyond the old church, 
the old burying-ground, and a few old houses, no visible 
landmarks now remain, it is easy with the aid of local 
guide-books to trace its numerous historic sites. Of 
the old houses the most sought is that in which Paul 
Kevere lived some years before and through the Revo- 



Places of Historical Interest. 115 

lution. This is on ISTorth square. On Hanover street, 
just below North Bennet street, is a Colonial landmark 
in the remnant of the Mather-Eliot house, built in 1677 
by Increase Mather, after the loss of his house in North 
square by the ^' great fire " of 1676. Here he lived till 
his death in 1723. After him the house was the home 
of the Eliots, Andrew and John, father and son, 
ministers respectively of the " New North Church " 
from 1742 to 1813. 

The stone King's Chapel, doubly distinguished as the 
seat of the first Episcopal church in Boston and of the 
first Unitarian, is the most picturesque of the historic 
churches still retained. It was built slowly between 
1749 and 1754, so constructed as to enclose the first 
King's Chapel, the plain little building of wood erected 
in 1688 during the governorship of the " arbitrary 
Andros." Governor Shirley laid the corner-stone. It 
occupies in part a corner of the old burying-ground 
which was taken for the first chapel, no Puritan land- 
holders being found to sell, because " they would not set 
up that which the people came from England to avoid." 
The interior, with its rows of columns supporting the 
ceiling, illuminated windows in the chancel, antique 
pulpit and reading-desk, recalls eighteenth-century 
London churches of the school of Wren. Numerous 
memorials, mural tablets, and quaintly sculptured monu- 
ments enrich the walls. In the tombs beneath the 
chapel were buried Shirley, three major-generals who 
distinguished themselves in the conquest of Canada, and 
other Boston worthies. 

King's Chapel Burying-ground, adjoining, was 
the first burial-place in the town, dating with the settle- 
ment. Here are the tombs of Governors Winthrop and 



ii6 Pmicipal Scientific Institutions. 

Leverett ; of the two Governors Winthrop of Connecti- 
cut ; of John Winslow and his wife, Mary Chilton of 
the " Mayflower '' passengers ; John Cotton and three 
other ministers of the First Church ; several of the early 
justices ; Lady Andros, wife of Sir Edmund, the gover- 
nor Isaac Addington, Major Thomas Savage, and others 
of distinction in Colonial days. 

The Granary Burying-ground, near by, was the 
third established — in 1660. At first called the '^ South 
Burial Ground," it early acquired its present name 
from its proximity to the town granary, which stood 
near the spot now occupied by the Park-street Church. 
Of the three ancient cemeteries this contains perhaps 
the largest number of distinguished graves. They 
include the tombs of seven governors, three signers of 
the Declaration of Independence, the parents of Benja- 
min Franklin, Judge Samuel Sewall, Peter Faneuil, 
Paul Eevere, the victims of the "Boston Massacre." 
There are monuments to Franklin's parents and to 
John Hancock ; and recently bowlders have been 
erected to the memory of Samuel Adams and James 
Otis. Bronze tablets inscribed with names and dates 
are on the gates of these old burying-grounds. 

The historic part of the State House on Beacon Hill, 
with its gilded dome, which Bostonians now call the 
" Bulfinch Front " to distinguish it from the extension 
of modern build in the rear, dates from 1798, begun in 
1795. It occupies John Hancock's pasture. It is a 
cherished piece of Bulfinch's work, of which little now 
remains in Boston Avhere early in the century there was 
much. Within the past year the building has been re- 
stored, so far as could be, to its original fashion, and 
made fire-proof. Like other historic buildings in the 



Places of Historical hiterest. 117 

city it has been preserved through the persistent exer- 
tions of public-spirited citizens. 

Tranquil Boston Common, in the heart of the city, 
has been public ground since 1(340, when it was set apart 
for a " trayning field." For its spacious malls, its noble 
elms, its '^ Frog Pond," Boston is indebted to the fathers, 
while its protection from destruction is due to the fore- 
sight of the early settlers. Its rich history, with the 
record of happenings upon it, has not yet been ade- 
quately given. Shurtlefr, perhaps, gives the most 
detailed sketch in his Topographical and Historical 
Description. The Common now embraces about forty- 
eight acres. The smaller Public Garden, below, is of 
modern make. It is built upon the edge of the Back 
Bay, which used to flow to the line of Charles street, 
and in place of which is the " elegant quarter " of the 
Boston of to-day. 

Bunker Hill Monument (built 1825-1842, 220 feet 
high) is a short electric-car ride or easy walk from State 
street. In the old Phipps-street Burying-ground, not 
far from the Monument grounds, is the first monument 
erected to John Harvard by graduates of Harvard 
College, in 1828. 



Note. — Famous places of hiRtorical interest beyond tbe limits of Boston 
are within easy reach of the city by electric car or frequent trains on the steam 
railroads. Those embraced in a radius of twelve miles from the State House 
are treated in Bacon's '• Walks and Rides in the Country Round About Bos- 
ton," a compact handbook with pocket maps, published by Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. for the Appalachian Mountain Club. Excellent special guides to sev- 
eral of these and more distant historic towns may be found in Boston or 
local bookstores. For Cambridge, see Charles Knowles Bolton's " The Gos- 
siping Guide to Harvard and Places of Interest in Cambridge." Much inter- 
esting information is also to be found in the larger publication, "The Cam- 
bridge of 1896," Arthur Gilman, editor. For Lexington, see *' Lexington : a 
Handbook of its Points of Interest, Historical and Picturesque," published 
under the direction of the Lexington Historical Society. For Concord, '* The 



ii8 Principal Scientific Institutions. 



Concord Guide-Book," by the late George Bradford Bartlett. For Salem, 
*• The Visitor's Guide to Salem," issued by the Essex Institute. For Marble- 
head, Samuel Roads, jr.'s, '• Guide." Boston historic points are systematically 
covered in " Boston Illustrated : a Familiar Guide to Boston and Vicinity," 
with a dictionary index, by Edwin M. Bacon, published by Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. See also titles of guide-books in " Preliminary Announcement " of the 
Local Committee. 



